Our Manager Must Learn
by Emari-chan
Summary: When Valjean takes over management of the Opéra Populaire from Lefévre, it's only a matter of time before Javert tracks him down. When he does, he is forced to hide in the maze-like hallways below the theater, pursued by the Inspector. Trapped by the opera house's own deus ex machina, the Phantom, the pair find themselves in more trouble than they know what to do with. J/JVJ slash
1. Entr'acte

A/N: Here we go again. For all you PotO fans out there, be advised that Erik as a character doesn't actually appear a whole lot in this chapter. He's saving his grand entrance for act two. That being said, he's rather critical to this chapter's conflict, as you shall see. One final note (pun mostly intended) regarding the phantom: I'm basing him in this fic a lot off of Leroux's original Erik, and less so off of his other incarnations.

Regarding timelines: Consider this as happening pre-Christine on Erik's part, and not long after Valjean and Cosette would have left the convent on the part of the Mizzies.

I wanted to write a fic playing with one of my favorite Javert headcanons, and this just sort of spiraled out from there. Extremely mild Valjean/Javert slash, a hell of a lot of water, and a cliffhanger ending. Sorry about that. Don't worry, I do intend to write the second part ASAP.

* * *

Our Manager Must Learn

Entr'acte

Jean Valjean was running. This, he reflected wryly, was not an unusual state of affairs for him.

He should have known that there was no earthly way to manage such a successful theatre without drawing undue attention down on himself, but truth be told, he had a soft spot for the arts. Artists were, in his opinion, the closest men could come to apotheosis, and when the opportunity to purchase the nationally renowned Opéra Populaire had presented itself, Valjean (or Fauchelevent, as he called himself) had been unable to resist. Monsieur Lefèvre had been falling over himself in eagerness to sell the place - heavens only knew why - and in a flash of impulsiveness, the magnificent theatre changed hands.

Valjean had not been left in the dark for long; within days it had become apparent why Lefèvre had run for it without so much as a glance over his shoulder. The second morning of his management, Madame Giry, the respectable ballet mistress, came to him with a sealed letter.

"From the Opéra Ghost, monsieur," she had said. "He bids you welcome, and reminds you that his bill of twenty-thousand francs is due at next week's end."

Valjean had read the letter with raised eyebrows, but as his financial attitude was rather more liberal than most individuals' (and indeed, than all of the Opèra's previous managers), he saw little wrong with supplying a local eccentric with the requested funds.

The results of his timely compliance were immediate and apparent. The ending of the month brought with it the opera house's first production under Valjean's management. A set design which had been deemed "too ambitious" was miraculously completed in the eleventh hour. A lighting malfunction that could have set the grand curtain ablaze was inexplicably averted. The opening night's show closed to thunderous applause, and in the aftermath, the entire cast was alive with whispers about the Opèra Ghost.

Valjean, eager to congratulate everyone on a fine performance, naturally overheard some of the rumors. They left him baffled, but amused. The overlying consensus was that some heavenly apparition haunted the confines of the theatre, blessing or cursing the productions according to its mood. Many a chorus girl had some coquettishly-recited tale of a dark figure in the little-used bowels of the theater which vanished without a trace, or of music, sometimes accompanied by song, which echoed as choirs of angels through abandoned passages. Such were the stories.

It was, insofar as he could gather, this specter to which Valjean paid a steep monthly homage, in order to purchase its graces. Having little use for wealth, and perfectly happy to distribute it to those less fortunate, Valjean simply shook his head in bemusement, raised everyone's salaries, and continued to accommodate the phantom's wishes. Cosette, meanwhile, developed a fascination with ballet and whiled away the hours studying the basics of a dance which most of the performers had perfected as children.

Nearly a year passed. With "Monsieur Fauchelevent" producing the opera house's work, all parties flourished, and the newspapers of France openly praised the gentleman's role in the work. A fantastical production of _Le jugement de Midas_ had his name in headlines: "Fauchelevent - Turning Opèra-Comique Into Gold".

It was the headlines which did it, Valjean decided as he ran down another flight of stairs. Having his name - even an assumed one - in bolded type was a risk he had not taken since Montreuil-sur-Mer. And Javert knew all about Fauchelevent, knew how Valjean had saved his life some decades ago. The crafty Inspector would have been more than capable of putting two and two together. No matter how it happened, the fact remained that Paris' single most pedantic officer of the law had appeared in the queue a half hour before the inception of the evening's performance.

Valjean, always eager to help, was carrying up a box of programs for the ushers when he passed the line. His eyes lifted as he smiled jovially to the crowd, waving a cordial hello. Then his eyes met Javert's. To say that their instant of mutual recognition was electric would be to make a gross understatement. It was positively lightning-charged, as Valjean recognized Javert, knew that Javert recognized him, and knew that Javert knew he knew. With an air of completely unflappable calm, Valjean handed the box off to a passing ropes-boy and walked the opposite direction. Only when he was out of the lobby and safely ensconced behind a door did his composure crack.

He had to go, and quickly, because the Inspector was doubtless already making a scene. There were a dozen exits which would take him into greater Paris, but he did not care to chance Javert's foresight - it was more than possible that the imminent Inspector had stationed officers around the theatre proper to stop his escape. More favorably, then, with more known variables to Valjean's advantage, was the prospect of finding a place to hide within the theater itself.

It was a plan with promise, for the further one ventured into the twisting passages of the ancient opera house, the more labyrinthine the building became. Indeed, it was something of a jest among the cast that one could get lost for a month if they took a wrong turn coming out of the dressing rooms. Losing Javert could not be that difficult. He'd certainly managed it before.

With the stamina of any thoroughbred and the silence of a fox, Valjean took off, down that corridor - a long, plain one lined with practice rooms - and then through another, which was shorter and filled with dusty oil paintings leaning against the walls. At the end of this passage was a portal that opened onto a flight of stairs. He heard a door slam behind him and abandoned caution, taking the steps two at a time.

Jean Valjean ran. One might almost say he was used to it.

* * *

Heavy leather boots thudded on the mahogany. Keen ears detected the sound of a slight break in step, a door opened and shut again. Valjean had led him on a merry dance thus far, racing ahead through exits and halls and stairs, spiraling ever-downwards in an attempt to lose his pursuer, but Inspector Javert was a wolf, thrilling and tireless in the chase. When he reached the next landing, he passed through the door and was rewarded by the sound of distant footfalls.

The old convict had taken leave of his senses if he thought he would evade capture. Javert had been waiting too long to clap shackles on those well-scarred wrists to be put off by Valjean's slight lead. The name Fauchelevent in the papers had been a sign from God, for it recalled to the Inspector a frail, white haired man rescued from under the crushing weight of a cart by a man who in the galleys had been called Jean the Jack. An unshakable hunch in his gut had led him here, and how easily it was validated! Certainly, this stunt as Opéra Manager was not the first time the con had tried hiding in plain sight.

Strolling with fierce confidence down the whitewashed hall, Javert rounded the corner and noticed that the echoes he had been tracking had subsided. It seemed that his quarry had paused. Perhaps Valjean had grown weary. Javert doubted it. The man was stronger than he; doubtless, he could run for some time yet before exhaustion caught him up. No, more probably was that the convict had found some hiding place and thought it sufficient to cover his scent, as it were.

This hallway was lined on both sides by wooden doors. A gas lamp hung between each frame, leaving a marked absence of shadow. Pressing his ear to the first door on the left, Javert listened. His hand crept to the hilt of the rapier at his waist, but no noise issued from within. The Inspector crossed the width of the hall and did the same, but again, he heard nothing. At each door, he listened, waiting for a creak, a cough, or a rustling. The middle portal on his right emitted a soft sigh, but when he opened the door, sword drawn and half-snarling, he was met with an empty space which merely amplified the sound of air blowing through a small opening near the ceiling. He shook his head and withdrew. Likely as not, it was some vent for the boiler room.

Even as he began to wonder if perhaps Valjean had taken shelter in the next hall over, he came to the final door on the left-hand side. This time, he was certain his ear had caught a scuffing, as of shoes on the flagstone floor when one shifts their weight. A gloved hand grasped the brass knob, and with no further ado, Inspector Javert threw open the door.

To his everlasting satisfaction, the convict he sought had indeed secreted himself in the room. Satisfaction rapidly turned to confusion when the convict failed to turn around and acknowledge him, instead staring as if transfixed at the immense instrument built into the room's back wall. As a man of exceptional focus, the Inspector paid this marvel little heed, nor did he begin to grasp the edges of its significance. For the sake of those who have never perused the lower levels of the Opéra Populaire, nor borne witness to this bizarre musical anomaly, the installation which so held Valjean's attention was this: a barrel organ, but one unlike any other organ ever seen by man. There were too many pipes, for one thing, and while many of them ran vertically up the wall, just as many ran horizontally, or even in curves, twisting around, over, and under the other brass pipes. Moreover, while these tubes had mouths drilled into them by which to fill the room with sound, their ends disappeared into the walls, perhaps exiting in some other room by dint of which an occupant could still hear the music being produced several floors away. This Valjean was considering, and this Javert was ignoring.

"You are caught," he growled, raising his weapon level with Valjean's back. "Surrender yourself."

Valjean did not appear to hear him. He cocked his head slightly, trying to pick out some pattern in the ghastly device.

"Prisoner 24601," Javert began, "you are under arrest following charges of theft, breaking parole, living under assumed titles, and -"

Valjean turned around.

"Curious, this," he said, an odd light in his eyes. "Have you ever seen such a strange and wondrous organ? I have attended many churches in my time, Inspector, and never have I seen such a piece."

"Quit your prattling," Javert snapped. "I repeat - you are under arrest for -"

"Yes, yes, I heard you the first time," said Valjean dismissively. "It counts for little."

Javert scoffed. "You mock the law even yet, in front of one who means to uphold its virtues? You prove yourself a fool."

"A fool? Maybe." Valjean took a step forward. "And yet, for all that, here I am, and you have not yet tried to clap me in handcuffs."

Javert withdrew a pair of silver manacles from his coat pocket.

"Do you yield, 24601? Or must I apply force?"

Valjean raised an eyebrow mildly. "I've not forgotten your name, Inspector Javert. You might see fit to use mine."

"You forfeit your name and your freedom the instant you broke your parole," Javert snarled. "Yield, and I shall not be forced to extend the list of charges."

The other man looked pointedly at the rapier in the Inspector's hand. "What do you plan to do with that, monsieur?" he asked. "Attack me? Permit me to tell you how that would play out, shall I? You would lunge, I would catch you by the wrist, twist the sword from your grasp, render you unconscious, and go my way. Do not think you can best me, Inspector. You cannot." Valjean spun back around and returned to examining the instrument, tracing his fingers lightly over the ivory keys.

"Strange indeed," he murmured. "The chorus girls often gossip about rooms such as these, for there are many treasures hidden beneath the theatre, and more than once I have been assured that wandering the corridors at night, one may hear distant organ music. Who would play such a contraption? Who would build it?"

Javert crossed the remainder of the small room, and pressed the point of the rapier in the spot between Valjean's shoulder blades.

"_Yield_," he hissed quietly.

"Going to kill me, Inspector?" Valjean asked, his tone casual. "I doubt it. You are a clever man - if you meant me harm, why not hold the sword to my neck instead? Far easier to cut a man's throat than to run him through."

Javert hesitated slightly. He was an officer of the police, not an executioner. While a baser instinct told him to kill the bastard and be done with it, this was an instinct easily ignored. Justice demanded that the man be returned to the galleys, and if Javert could be said to worship anything, it was justice. In an instant, he abandoned his strategy. He dropped his sword, returning it to his sheath, and refused to take notice of Valjean's amused exhalation. Then, in a course of action wholly improvised, the Inspector lunged to the side, locking one half of the handcuffs around Valjean's right hand.

"What - ?!" The old con's exclamation of surprise was cut off as he turned on his heel, but Javert turned with him, grabbing at his other hand. Valjean was a powerful man, and one to be reckoned with, certainly. The raw muscle rippling under his clothes, so at-odds with his fine suit and cravat, jerked his wrist from the Inspector's grasp and elbowed him with a blow to the stomach that left him retching. Struggling back to his feet, Javert glared daggers at Valjean, who was eyeing him with a similar expression of cold fury.

The tension was only heightened by a snap and a loud click. Both men wheeled in unison to stare at the door, which had, apparently of its own accord, swung shut.

"What now?" Javert muttered, crossing to the door.

He tried the handle. He tried it again. He shook it still more violently. After a minute, he stepped back, forced to confront the ugly truth - the door was locked.

* * *

Jean Valjean took advantage of the Inspector's distraction to examine the metal cuff fastened around his wrist. It only just fit; there was little leeway to exploit in breaking it off him. He likewise had no file on his person, an oversight which bespoke the comfort he felt in his role as manager. He grimaced. The metal was cheap, and he could probably crack it, given time and a lever, but it would be uncomfortable.

Just then, Javert let out a strangled curse and Valjean looked up.

"Is this your doing?" the Inspector demanded.

"Is what?"

"The door!" Javert gestured in agitation.

"What about the door?"

By way of answer, Javert jiggled the knob and the door remained resolutely shut. Frowning, Valjean moved to where the Inspector stood and examined the mechanism itself.

"This can only be locked from the outside," Valjean murmured, recalling jail cells which operated under the same principle. "So how...?"

"If this is some plot on your part, Valjean..." Javert said, his voice carrying a clear warning.

The shorter man spared him a glance conveying his contempt of the implication. "To what end would I possibly have had myself locked into a storage room with _you_?"

The Inspector harrumphed and leaned on the wall, watching as Valjean braced himself against the wood. Taking half a step back, Valjean slammed his shoulder against the door's middle. It barely shuddered beneath his strength, and Valjean for his part stumbled backwards, rubbing his shoulder with a rueful expression.

"What?" Javert asked, his eyebrows raised in sarcastic challenge. "A ship's mast is scarcely a burden, but a door proves too much for you?"

Valjean did not rise to the bait, but pointed instead at the obstacle barring their exit. "It is a metal door," the man explained, "covered by a wooden veneer. My strength _does _have limits. If I could break through two inches of iron, I never would have needed a file to break out of the galley's chains."

Javert snorted but did not challenge this pronouncement. "Wonderful," was his only comment before he settled more comfortably against the wall.

Valjean surveyed the storeroom. Besides the organ and bench, there were three barrels which perhaps held wine, if they were superbly lucky. Beyond that, the room was sparse - a single gas lamp hung on the left wall, which was covered in dark wooden planks. The others displayed bare stone, the same as the floor. There was nothing to eat, and nothing but the barrels' contents for drink, if indeed they held anything.

Kneeling at the base of one of these barrels, its wood nearly black with age and mold, Valjean eased open the tap. Nothing issued forth, and he chewed his lip in consternation. Moving on to the second tap, Valjean mouthed a silent prayer and then nearly melted with relief when the tap produced into his cupped palm a dark red liquid which smelled fragrantly of ancient vineyards and summers long since spent. He shut the tap hurriedly, and sipped the heady wine before it ran onto the floor. It seared his throat, but it would keep dehydration at bay. The third barrel, he saw, was as dry as the first. With a sigh, he stood, considering their prospects. Deciding he had worked with less, Valjean turned to explain their position to Javert when he discovered the Inspector watching him with an air of haughty entertainment.

"Checking your stores?" he asked mordantly.

"We could be trapped here some time," Valjean pointed out. "It seemed prudent to know what we have to work with."

"'We'?" the Inspector repeated. "'We' are not doing anything. I am waiting for my officers to send out a search party. When they find us, then you will be going to jail."

Valjean shrugged. "And in the meantime?" he asked. "We are five floors down. Your officers have no idea where you are, and I imagine they know little of the theater. It could be days before we are found, and that's if we are fortunate. Even if we are found, the key to the door must also be located, or a new one minted." The man smiled slightly. "I hope you don't object to keeping me company."

If Javert suddenly looked somewhat drawn, it could only be because he had just had his situation laid out very neatly in front of him, and it was not one which he deemed pleasant. More concerning to him than his captivity was the man he was trapped with, for he was unpleasantly aware of Valjean's superior strength, and the fact that his safety was an illusion depending on the convict's continuing good humor. Valjean's final comment, though innocent in its intention, seemed to the Inspector a veiled threat. Death did not frighten him, but he did not welcome pain, and the knowledge that no-one would hear him scream was enough to overwhelm any sane individual. His jaw clenched, and he backed into the corner, hand gripping his sword hilt.

Utterly missing the subtleties of Javert's concern, Valjean just shook his head and put it down to the Inspector's continued hostility. His eye caught on the organ again, and he wandered to it.

"Do you know," he chuckled, "the chorus girls are always tittering about how their Opéra Ghost favors the organ. Perhaps this is his." He pressed his fingers against the keys, and then stumbled back, clamping his hands to his ears as the instrument emitted a deafening howl of discordant notes. It died away reluctantly, echoing in Valjean's head longer than he would have liked. Behind him, Javert was faring little better, and Valjean glanced at him apologetically. "Forgive me," he said. "I had no idea it was still in working order."

"Clearly," growled the Inspector. "Perhaps you can leave the music-making to individuals with talent."

"Everyone's a critic." Hands resting on his hips, Valjean frowned at the offending barrel organ. "What a pile of rubbish," he murmured.

No sooner had he said this than six of the keys sank into their depressions, emitting a high chord, immediately followed by another, and then another.

"Will you give it a rest?" Javert shouted over the din.

Valjean backed away slowly. "I'm not -" he broke off. "I didn't -" he tried again. When he was standing with his back to the door and the device still playing on its lonesome, his head swiveled to meet Javert's eyes, which were quite as wide as his own. "I didn't touch it," he succeeded in mouthing. "It just _started_."

For five long minutes, the organ pounded through its hellish piece. Perhaps on a piano, it might have been enchanting, but on that wicked instrument, locked in the underskirts of the opera house, it was its own sort of death waltz, wild and haunting. And still, the keys played themselves.

At last, with a grand crescendo, the song finished. If Valjean looked to be trembling ever so slightly, neither of them commented on it, though the handcuff around his wrist tinkled faintly as it shook. Both men, needless to say, were exceptionally rattled.

"Perhaps I discounted the stories too quickly," Valjean smiled weakly. "A demon might play such demented music."

"Nonsense," Javert snapped. "It's a wind-up mechanism of some sort. You must have set it ticking with your earlier theatrics."

It was a reasonable explanation, but the lingering pall of shock and fear made such a line of reasoning seem too abstract. Astonishment makes the logical feel illogical, for some events are best described by theories which, in any other context, would sound quite mad.

* * *

Valjean walked to the barrels and sat, leaning heavily against the wall. "I confess my nerves are shot," he said. "May I recommend we partake in a bit of this fine wine to take the edge off?"

A faint sneer curled the Inspector's lip. "We've no glasses," he pointed out. "Or are we meant to lap from our palms like dogs?"

The sitting man shrugged. "We are hardly in polite company, Inspector. It seems a bit absurd to cling to propriety under such circumstances. Besides, thirst shall require we drink sooner or later, cups or no cups."

Javert sat gingerly on the floor, careful to arrange his greatcoat around himself so as to not wrinkle it. For his part, Valjean was already pouring the liquor into his outstretched hand. In a single gulp, he threw his head back and swallowed it. Drinks such as these, forgotten by their keepers and left unto great age in a place of cool dryness, should not be underestimated in their potency. With even this one draught, the older man's cheeks tinged a faint pink, and he blinked somewhat dazedly.

Javert observed this development with keen interest, the foundations of a plan already outlining itself. He too took a small amount of drink, sipping it slowly and despising the way it made his heart beat faster and his head ache. Often, he was called unsociable at interpersonal events, for he drank little if at all. "Unsociable" was certainly not far from the truth of it, but his personal vices limited themselves to the occasional indulgence in snuff. His drinking habits, minimalist as they were, were grounded in his opinion that a police officer was meant to be sharp, and alcohol in its multifarious varieties only served to dull the senses. This he kept well in mind as he finished his own small portion, but motioned for Valjean to take more.

Now, it should be noted too that Valjean was also quite conservative in his preference of drink. He was, however, an easy-going gentleman by nature, and was more likely to take a glass or two when in company. With most wines, such a practice might amount to a bit of light-headedness, if anything. The concentration of the store room's contents, being much stronger, worked quicker in littler time, and before long, Valjean's chin was nodding sleepily against his chest.

Javert sat stock-still, waiting for the opportune moment. When Valjean let out a quiet snore, the Inspector permitted himself a smug grin before he carefully placed the other man's hands together in his lap, snapping the second cuff around his left wrist. His goal accomplished, Javert backed carefully away and settled against the opposite wall.

Thus, one problem among many was contained, if not entirely solved. Jean Valjean was a dangerous man. It was only a matter of time before he took his revenge on the Inspector; this Javert knew. And so, in restraining the convict's hands, his capacity to attack him decreased somewhat. If Javert could only hold him at bay, he may yet be alive when at last a rescuer arrived.

He could not afford sleep, though his body ached with fatigue. Even handcuffed, Valjean could do him grave injury, and the wine would not maintain its soporific effect long. Forcing himself awake, Javert did much as he did as a guard in Toulon: he watched, and he waited.

The time passed slowly, but the Inspector fought ennui, his ironclad will keeping him awake and alert. The occasional small sound interrupted his focus, little clicks and scratches inside the walls, which he decided could only be rats. Musty and oppressive, the room felt too close. Doubtless, some portion of this was derived from the knowledge that he was trapped. Gradually, it became harder to keep his eyes open, and there was a grittiness about their edges which suggested his need for sleep. The Inspector rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation.

Just then, Valjean stirred, blinking blearily and pulling himself upright. He too went to rub his face, much in the same manner that Javert had done, and in doing so noticed the manacles clamped now around both wrists. For a long moment, he froze, and Javert tensed, prepared to fend off any retribution as necessary. Eventually, however, Valjean only sighed, massaged his temples, and turned his chin ever so slightly in Javert's direction.

"That was really unnecessary," he said, shaking the handcuffs for emphasis.

"You'll forgive me if I don't agree," the Inspector replied coolly.

"I do."

Javert's brow furrowed. "That was a figure of speech."

"Quite so," Valjean nodded, "and yet I forgive you for it, regardless."

"Has anyone ever told you that you are a ridiculous man?"

Valjean's smile was slight, almost conspiratorial. "I think you yourself expressed similar sentiments to Monsieur Madeleine on multiple occasions."

Javert groaned inwardly, cursing the convict's resourcefulness for the umpteenth time. Only Valjean could successfully break parole and become mayor, as well as the owner of a wealthy manufacturing business. Only Valjean could best him in a fight and disappear into the dark with a little girl in tow. Only Valjean could run an opera house into its best season in a decade. And only Valjean would have the nerve to look him in the eye after all that, blatantly mocking Authority, and smile. The man was not just ridiculous - he was downright maddening.

There was another little click in the wall. Valjean turned to it, frowning. "What was that?" he asked.

"Rats, no doubt," the Inspector replied, glaring at the masonry.

"Funny," Valjean murmured. "I've never heard anything like it before."

"In a place like this, there are bound to be rats," Javert said. "As certain as there are bound to be criminals among the poor," he pointedly added.

"There would be far fewer," Valjean said reproachfully, "if they were not punished with homelessness and hunger just for being prolétariat."

"An honest man will be honest no matter his circumstances," Javert argued. "Corruption will out itself whether man is peasant or bourgeois."

Valjean shook his head. "Your naïveté never fails to astound, Inspector," the man sighed. "How often does a man's wealth protect his name, cover up his foul deeds, and how often are the poor wrongly accused of crimes which they did not commit and have no power to argue against? Your Law -"

"Is the only thing which keeps this country from dissolving into chaos!" Javert thundered. "The Law punishes the unrighteous and rewards virtue! Your stake against it is due only to your bitterness at being on the wrong side of Authority!"

"I admit," Valjean said calmly, "that stealing a loaf of bread is indeed outside the boundaries of legality. I think I more than made up for that slight transgression by slaving nineteen years in the galleys, and since that time, I have done my utmost to redeem my character. It is a pity that you cannot see that."

"Men cannot change their ways," Javert said flatly. "They can work tirelessly to maintain their virtue, but once tarnished, the soul is forever tainted by evil."

"But how can you believe that?!" For the first time, Valjean sounded truly upset, gesticulating as wildly as handcuffs permitted. "Divine forgiveness releases man of their transgressions! Through Grace, any person may be redeemed, no matter their crime."

"Such thinking," Javert answered, his voice cold, "is the product of mortals who wish to justify their lives of sin. A man who commits murder and prays for mercy afterward must still go to jail. Man's justice is lenient next to God's - those who fail in keeping his testaments burn for eternity. Remember that when you pray for your petty forgiveness."

Valjean stood, his expression bordering on furious. The Inspector got up as well, watching the other man warily. The white haired man stalked over to where he stood, getting too close for comfort, but close to the wall as he was, Javert had no room to maneuver. Even with his hands bound together, Valjean managed to grab the Inspector by the lapels of his greatcoat and looked him dead in the eye. Javert felt his heart beat faster, but mastered his emotions easily. He would not show fear, even if his consciousness was trying to overwhelm him with the images of limbs snapping in meaty hands, or of ribs cracking beneath an elephantine heel.

"How_ dare_ you -" Valjean began, visibly struggling to contain himself. "What is _wrong _with you that you can't see -"

Scarcely noticed by either party, the odd noises within the stone had been steadily intensifying. Now Valjean cut himself off as they grew to such magnitude that it was more a continuous drone of clicking and whistles. The loudest sounds seemed to emit from the organ wall, behind and inside the pipes. Stepping back, releasing his grip on the Inspector, Valjean eyed the organ uneasily.

"That's not rats," he said.

"Quiet!" Javert hissed, staring too at the instrument.

For a moment, the cacophony, more mechanical than organic, continued. Then it fell perfectly, ominously silent. Valjean edged backwards, until he also stood against the wall, and between Javert and the organ.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered suddenly.

The Inspector strained his ears. Faintly, though growing all the time in strength and clarity, came a sort of rushing.

"It sounds like water," he said, an unpleasant sense of foreboding stirring in his gut. A gypsy learns early to trust his instincts, and he grabbed Valjean by the collar, dragging him back towards the door. He was unsure what it suggested that Valjean did not protest.

Across the room, there was a distinct pop and then a crack as a metal pin burst from its place in the barrel organ and flew across the room, striking the wall and cleaving off a chip of stone like butter. From the pin's exit hole came spurting a powerful jet of water; at the sound of a few more metallic pings, Valjean pulled Javert bodily to the floor, and only just in time as pieces of shrapnel dented the door where their chests had been a moment prior.

More water poured forth. It sprang from the organ's every orifice, sloshing down over the keys and the bench and running in long puddles across the floor. Valjean gestured at the barrels; taking his meaning, Javert hastened to them, Valjean not far behind, and the two men hoisted themselves onto the dry tops of the wine containers even as water pooled around their base.

Flowing heavy and fast, it was but a minute before the edge of the tide reached the door, flowing out the crack at the bottom into the hallway beyond. Javert breathed a sigh of relief, but Valjean eyed the water darkly.

"Do not make the mistake of thinking we are safe yet, Inspector," he warned. "The room may well be filling faster than it will empty."

Worrying his lower lip, Javert surveyed the scene more critically and came to the same conclusion as Valjean: the water was pouring in much too fast. If it continued at such a rate, the room would flood.

* * *

"We are going to die," said the Inspector with a terrible sort of poise.

"We'll figure something out," Valjean said doggedly, scanning the contents of the room for something - anything - with which to stop the water. He came up short.

Javert, meanwhile, was still talking. "Again with this 'we'," he said. "Do not pretend you have any interest in helping me. Any action you take is intended for your own benefit."

"Inspector," Valjean began, wondering absently if he could plug the holes in the pipes. Given that the water pressure had cracked metal, this seemed unlikely. "Now is really not the time to discuss your impression of my character. Kindly make yourself useful, or, failing that, be silent."

Javert looked offended, but he managed to hold his tongue. Valjean hopped off the barrel, water sloshing over his shoes as they hit the ground. The Inspector made as if to get up, but Valjean waved him away. "Stay put," he said, walking to the door. "No sense in our both getting soaked."

Something about Javert's expression bespoke relief, but he said nothing and Valjean wisely chose not to comment.

The door was as solid and unmoving as ever. The older gentleman gave it a serious examination, leaving nothing unconsidered. No removable hardware was visible on or around the doorknob. Possibly he could break it off, given time and leverage, but that was not certain to unlock it, and indeed could leave them even more hopelessly trapped. The door's hinges were on the room's interior. With most models, one can remove the hinge pin and pull the door out of place. Here, as he examined it, Valjean found the lip of the pin soldered to the hinge's edge, stuck fast and immovable. His eyes narrowed, a rather unpleasant suspicion slowly unfurling itself in the lower stretches of his consciousness.

"This was intentional," he murmured.

"What?" Javert asked sharply.

"This," Valjean waved his hand, vaguely indicating the room, "was intentional. Someone trapped us in here on purpose."

"You aren't speaking sense," the Inspector said. "And I suppose you'll be saying next that your Opéra Ghost is the culprit!"

Valjean shook his head wearily. "Then how did the door just happen to lock itself?" he asked. "Why go to the trouble of masking an iron door as a wooden one?"

"But -"

"And why should the hinge be welded to the pin if not to prevent someone escaping?"

Javert's expression was creased in a deep frown, but he did not interrupt Valjean again.

"Someone has turned this room into a trap," said Valjean grimly. "I have seen the blueprints of these facilities, Inspector, and while they are nearly unintelligible in their complexity, I can give you my word that there was no design in the theatre's original incarnation to allow water to pour into any part of this side of the building. Someone has altered it."

"To drown an intruder?" Javert asked. "It is possible. The Patron-Minette could doubtless invent such a clever scheme."

"I doubt this is their work," Valjean said, "and there is no proof yet that our captor intends our demise. To catch us and frighten us, yes, but whether they mean to kill us is yet unclear."

"Regardless," said Javert, "it seems we are well and truly trapped."

"So it would appear." Valjean returned to the barrels, hoisting himself onto his and letting his legs dangle as he sat, the soaked hem of his pants and his shoes dripping fiercely. Javert looked at him askance and shifted himself a few centimeters further away, but Valjean pretended not to notice.

Hours passed in silence but for the continued pouring of water, a miniaturized Cascade de Gavarnie. Anything either half of the pair might have said to the other had already been said, or else was too beyond either man's capacity for words to describe. They had each hoped, privately, that eventually the pipes would slow in their unrelenting deluge, but such a reprieve never came to pass. Instead, the water level rose steadily, first barely covering the stone pavement in a glistening sheet of liquid glass, then to a handspan's height, and eventually to the point where Valjean was forced to withdraw his legs from the wooden ledge and sit cross-legged, lest his drying trousers be doused again.

After a length of time both too long and not long enough, the water tension was rimming the uppermost edges of the barrels, ready to spill over at any moment. Valjean and Javert stood almost in unison, the former eyeing the expanse of liquid around them with resignation, and the latter with exceptional distaste. The organ was almost entirely submerged, though long streams of bubbles suggested that even those pipes which were already covered continued to pour out pressurized jets.

Javert turned to Valjean, who was loosening his cravat, sharply.

"What are you doing?"

"Removing my cravat," Valjean said composedly, dropping it over the edge of the barrel into the water, where it rippled, sending a small wave splashing over the edge of the wood onto Valjean's shoes. The Inspector watched it sink with a sense of horror that seemed oddly misplaced, and Valjean tilted his head as he added, "It seems we will have to swim eventually. It seems sensible to remove extra clothing now before it is cumbersome and water-soaked." He undid the clasps on his waistcoat, dropping it as indifferently as he had the neck-scarf. Then he eyed the Inspector's heavy greatcoat. "I suggest you get rid of that, at least," he said. "Or it will drag you straight to the bottom once it's wet."

Javert blinked once at him with an expression that might have been dazed before he glanced down at the indicated garment. "Yes," he agreed, though he made no motion to remove it.

Valjean, left in his shirt sleeves, sighed in exasperation. "You ought to at least unbutton it," he prompted.

It was a mark of how unsettled the Inspector was that he complied almost automatically, numbly undoing the buttons before dropping his chin to stare again at the water now pooling around his boots. It was likewise a testament to Valjean's distraction that aside from a sourceless befuddlement he failed to notice the Inspector's distress. Instead he said, "I wonder if it's true. The stories."

"Which ones?" Javert asked listlessly. "About Heaven and Hell? I doubt it. Dante was an insurgent and an idealist. His accounts are therefore biased and improbable."

Valjean did start somewhat at this.

"What? Heavens, no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant the stories of our opera house phantom."

Javert snorted. "I doubt that, too. God and his wraiths do not have a sense of humor."

"It's just so strange," Valjean murmured, as if the Inspector had said nothing. "He is said to be a musician and an architect. No doubt the chorus girls would think this trap clever enough for him."

This inspired a reaction more in keeping with the Inspector's usual character. "Perhaps the story was enough to draw in some vagrant seeking to profit off superstition," he said dismissively, "but unless our theoretical captor actually presents himself to us, there is little point in random speculation. Suffice it to say, there is no phantom of your fatuous Opéra."

There was, just above the sound of the water, a faint breath of laughter.

"Did you hear that?" Valjean asked, his brow furrowed.

"I heard nothing."

The shorter man looked up and around, but though he listened intently, he heard nothing more.

* * *

The water was cold. Javert was processing very few things, his mind clouded by a thick mist of anticipation, but he did perceive this fact. It began by seeping in through the stitching around his toes. Then it was high enough to pour down the mouth of his boots in earnest, chilling his blood in more than one sense. With increasing passivity and fatalistic acceptance, he watched the water line crawl slowly upwards, felt it bite through each new inch of clothing to grab the skin beneath in frozen pinchers. His coat, precisely as Valjean had predicted, became heavy as iron weights as the thick wool grew fat and absorbent, swishing airily around his ankles if he shifted in place.

He had given up on movement some time ago, leaning heavily against the wall for support as he contemplated what it would feel like when the water finally rose high enough to clamp around his nose and mouth. Painful, he decided; excruciatingly painful to feel the oxygen ripped from one's lungs, to know one's chest was filling with liquid and that relief was unattainable. It was only the thought of the inevitable suffering he would endure that prevented him pitching himself forward and ending that horrified anticipation which said he would soon be dead anyway. The calm before the storm, he thought absently, was torture in its own right.

Next to him, Valjean's presence barely registered, except as occasionally and with annoyance equal to that of a bothersome fly. He muttered to himself, apparently gauging relative heights and distances. The man had yet to accept their situation, seemingly convinced that escape remained an option. Perhaps for him it did, for Jean Valjean was a capable swimmer and, Javert thought darkly, he had plenty of experience where escape was concerned. But unless the water halted its advance very soon - and the pipes gave as of yet no sign that they intended to slow in their inundation of the room - Javert would shortly know the precise sensation of drowning most intimately.

When his chest began to feel constricted by the liquid weight pressed against it, Valjean let out a great "Ha!" of triumph. The Inspector's head rotated against the wall to smile sardonically at him.

"Figure something out?" he asked. It was the first words he'd spoken in hours.

"Nothing that will get us out of here," the old con cautioned, "but we need not drown."

"Is that so?" the Inspector asked coolly.

"The air is being displaced," explained Valjean, inclining his head at the room around them. "The water is rising and pushing the air out of the way. So there must be a crack somewhere where the air is escaping. If we can find it and plug it, the air will be trapped here with us, like an underwater cave."

"Brilliant," Javert said, rolling his eyes as he returned to a neutral position. The water was now pressing against the upper edge of his sternum. "I wish you well in filling your fanciful crack. Perhaps before you go off to follow flights of fancy, you might at least do me the favor of killing me quickly."

"I -" Valjean began. "I beg your pardon?" he finished, turning to regard Javert incredulously.

The Inspector shrugged, his coat sagging around his shoulders, but he paid it no mind. "You want your vengeance for nineteen years in the galleys and another two decades of my hounding your footsteps. Good, then. Take it."

Valjean appeared wholeheartedly dumbfounded. "You are not speaking sense."

"Come, come," Javert dismissed him. "You had best kill me now, for the water will have me shortly and then you'll have missed your chance."

"Javert..." Valjean had turned all the way around now, wearing an expression which suggested that Javert was about to regret for the umpteenth time saying anything to the man. "You cannot actually believe that I mean you any harm."

The Inspector let out a hollow laugh. "A madman believing wholeheartedly that he can fly will still succumb to gravity leaping from a cliff. It does not matter what I _believe_, Valjean, for it is _true_."

Valjean shook his head vehemently. "It is not," he said, a mayor's quiet authority underscoring the words, and Javert felt himself wince. "I have not wished you ill for many, many years, Inspector. Wished that perhaps you were not so observant where I was concerned, yes, but wanted to hurt you? I am not capable of it."

Javert stood in silence, his eyes closed and his head bowed until the water was brushing its silky tendrils across the base of his neck. Then, his mouth tightened and he withdrew a key from his coat pocket. Without looking at Valjean, he held it out to him.

The light-haired man took the key carefully, confusion written blatantly across his features.

"I... don't understand," he said quietly.

Javert raised his head. "I doubt even you would make a successful swimmer with your hands cuffed."

"You're letting me go?" There was shock in his voice, amazement, and something the Inspector did not care to name.

"It is immaterial," the Inspector answered. "You will drown eventually. But free of shackles, you might find it within yourself to break my neck. Do not make me beg for that small mercy."

There was a pair of soft clicks and a splash as Valjean discarded the handcuffs. Rubbing his wrists where they were chafed, he slid the key into his breast pocket. It was well that Javert had acted when he had, for Valjean was several inches shorter, and it was not long after he freed himself that he had to begin treading water to keep his head above the surface.

The time when Javert would have to do the same was rapidly approaching, but Valjean was alarmed to see the Inspector remain as apathetic as ever, even when the water tickled his jaw line.

"Javert..." he hazarded. The police Inspector glanced at him, quirking an eyebrow. "If... If you balance yourself on the wall, you needn't use as much strength swimming," he provided. Javert's eyes rose briefly, and then fell again, back to the dark water.

"Javert." There was a pleading edge to Valjean's voice that had not been there before. "Lose your coat, at least, for God's sake! You can't swim like that."

"Mmm," Javert replied matter-of-factly. "For once, you are entirely correct. I cannot swim in this. I cannot even try. It will drag me to the floor very quickly, I should think. Much easier than flailing hopelessly towards a surface one cannot reach."

"Javert, what are you saying?"

The water was wetting the Inspector's whiskers, and he had to tip his head back when he replied to keep it out of his mouth.

"I am drowning," he said. "You denied me my death, so now the water will complete its purpose. I suppose the notion of my dying slowly pleases you."

"Swim, man!" Valjean shouted, his voice more hysterical than Javert found plausible, given the circumstances. They were bitter rivals; why would Valjean care if he died? "Drop your coat and swim!"

Everyone has a point at which they snap. Each one of the day's stressors brought themselves to bear on the Inspector, and in that instant, his composure cracked and calm acceptance of the inevitable was replaced by unadulterated despair.

"I _can't!_" he cried, his eyes blazing as he whipped around to glare at Valjean with such a look that for a moment, Valjean appeared genuinely startled. "With or without the blasted coat, I cannot!"

"Cannot what?" Valjean asked, evidently wary of sparking another outburst.

Javert pressed his lips together so hard they turned white at the edges. "Must I spell it out for you?" he spat through clenched teeth. "_Swim_. I cannot swim, you thrice-accursed _moron_."

Comprehension dawned on Valjean's features, and he brushed aside the insult to his intelligence with ease. Javert, however, was paying little mind to Valjean's reaction, for he was preoccupied with standing on tiptoe, trying to evade the merciless climb of the water as it pressed against his mouth and he struggled not to inhale it. His spell of anger had worn off as abruptly as it had begun, and the Inspector found that sheer terror had crept up on him in the interval. He did not want to die, but knew it was his fate as a mortal man. Still, if he had had the option to choose the time and manner of his death, he was certain that liquid asphyxiation would have featured at the very bottom of his list.

And so Javert cannot be blamed for having his eyes shut, nor for failing to notice Valjean's presence until after the man had pulled the coat from off his shoulders. There was a sudden tight pressure at his waist, and then he could breathe again.

Blinking in shock, he spluttered with embarrassment when he realized that Valjean had his arm around his middle and was supporting them both easily in the flooded room.

"Let me go this instant!" he demanded.

"Certainly not," said Valjean a touch reprovingly. "If you truly think that I would consent to watch you drown -" A small shudder worked its way down the man's frame. "- then your opinion of me must really be abysmal."

Javert grit his teeth.

"I will burn in hell before I let you do... whatever one would call this."

"Then don't. Wrap your arms around my neck and this would be infinitesimally easier."

The Inspector seethed. He had thought the last thing he wanted was to sink and die, but being rescued by Valjean was quickly coming to compete for that despised title. The fingers splayed across his side tightened fractionally as Valjean adjusted his weight in the water and Javert shrank from the touch. Gingerly, he grabbed the older man's shoulders, relaxing by a fraction of a degree as Valjean let go of his waist. With both arms free, Valjean's balance in the water improved, and he was able to keep both their heads well above water with minimal effort. Javert found that if he kicked his feet ever so slightly, he was able to alleviate some of the falling sensation that gripped him. Provided he didn't look down, the water-induced vertigo almost left him. He briefly considered just letting go and permitting the water to overcome him, but he had the distinct impression that Valjean would make that impossible.

"Okay," Valjean sighed softly, startling the Inspector from his reverie. "We're okay."

"For now," the Inspector conceded tightly. "Though insofar as I can tell, you've only delayed the inevitable."

"Where there's life, there's hope," the other man said firmly. "I am telling you, we can escape if only we can find -"

Valjean's words were cut off by a sudden blackness falling across their vision. Javert yelped and immediately resolved to never, under any circumstances, admit that he had, but Valjean too had startled, and did not appear to have noticed.

"The light," groaned the Inspector. "The light went out."

And so it had. The water level, having climbed up three quarters of the storeroom wall, had finally raised itself above the height of the lamp's glass globe and come pouring through the top, extinguishing the flame and plunging the room into jet blackness.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then Javert said, "You were saying?"

"Ah. Um." If the Inspector hadn't known better, he might have thought there was a faint tremor to Valjean's voice. "We may, in fact, be in trouble."

"You don't say." The sarcastic diatribe of condemnation and mockery that would doubtless have followed this statement was choked off as Javert flinched, certain that something had just brushed against his foot.

"Are you alright?" Valjean did not bother to mask the concern in his voice, and Javert's stomach turned over at it, even as he strained his eyes trying to see down into the onyx liquid around them.

"I do not like water," was his only reply. What if there was something swimming under them? Something they couldn't see? For a horrible instant, Javert had visions of something enormous and slimy wrapping its tentacles around his legs, dragging him down. The seven feet of water may as well have been a mile for all the good it would do him, and he suppressed another shudder.

Valjean, blast him, was attempting to start a conversation. "If you do not mind my asking, Inspector," he was saying, "how is it that you never learned to swim?"

Javert considered this. It would be so easy to not answer, but perhaps talking would take his mind off his situation.

"A boy drowned in the pond near the jailhouse when I was a child," the Inspector replied tonelessly. "I was forbidden to go anywhere near it."

"And you listened?" Valjean chuckled to himself. "That sounds like you."

"Actually," Javert said, his voice still emotionless, "I disobeyed. Not intentionally. But I saw the consequences nevertheless."

"And?" Valjean's voice was hushed, even breathless.

It occurred to the Inspector, in the dis-attached way that thoughts do when one is under exceptional duress, that he was telling Valjean things which he had never in his life even said out loud. He tried to make himself stop, and yet the connection between his mind and mouth felt broken. To his horror, he found himself continuing the story.

"I was older, perhaps eight years of age, when a harsh winter fell across the country. The guards sent me to fetch firewood," he explained, the scene panning out before him of a white wasteland, broken only by the black silhouettes of the trees. "The downed sticks could most often be found around the pond. I was collecting them when I stepped onto the lake. It was impossible to see, for it was buried under a layer of snow, but the ice was thin and it cracked. I should have died."

"You were rescued?"

"No." A curious smile, more akin to a grimace, quirked his features as he considered this. "At the last second, my hand caught on some rope frozen into the bank. The guards thought it was divine providence that I survived. But I never went near water again so long as I could help it."

Valjean was silent for some time, apparently absorbing this, and Javert was grateful for the reprieve. He was a mess of gooseflesh, and wondered idly if perhaps hypothermia would kill him before the room ran out of oxygen. It would be kinder.

When Valjean broke the silence, it was to say, "I am sorry about this."

Javert raised an eyebrow, and then, realizing that Valjean could not see him, added, "About which part of this, exactly?"

The shoulders the Inspector clutched lifted a degree. "Any of it," Valjean replied. "All of it. If I had chosen some other room to hide in..."

The Inspector snorted. "I did not _have_ to chase after you, did I? I followed you in here by choice. And who is to say that the same thing could not have happened elsewhere? If, as you seem to think, this is the result of someone toying with us, it seems terribly improbable that this is the only room rigged to ensnare trespassers."

This was intended to convey fact only, but Valjean seemed to draw some strength from the Inspector's words as if they were spoken in comfort.

"It is good of you to forgive it, Inspector," said the older man.

"I said nothing of forgiveness," Javert snapped. "I forgive nothing!" In the silence surrounding this exclamation, the only thing audible was the gurgle of water climbing the walls. "And yet," he murmured after some time, "I wonder if perhaps it is I who is at fault there."

"Inspector," said Valjean carefully, "while your nature lends itself to the unyielding, I do not think -"

"Unyielding?" Javert laughed softly, and there was a hint of madness at the edges of that sound. "Valjean, I said earlier that you were a fool. That may well be. And yet, I begin to see that I am truly the fool, here."

"Javert -"

"No. Hear me. I have never once doubted the corruption of your nature - you were a convict! A thief! The Law found you guilty, and so did I. How many decades have I pursued you across France? I saw your charitable acts and knew them to be a façade. I cannot begin to count the number of reasons I have provided you to despise me, and yet, given ample opportunity, you would not kill me. Not only this, but you have saved my life, and I think I am not worthy of it."

Valjean's head twisted over his shoulder, a useless gesture in the absolute dark, but an instinctive one, nevertheless. "You only did what you believed was your duty, Inspector. I cannot blame you for that."

"But you should!" the Inspector insisted. "Blaming me, breaking the Law, being_ wrong_ was supposed to be your duty. And yet, as everything else, you have flaunted that and chosen to become a good man instead. You are an anomaly, Jean Valjean, and because of you, I no longer know my place in the world."

Javert did not add that had they not already been waiting for death, he might well have sought out that reaper of souls for his deliverance. Somehow, he found it hard to believe that Valjean would have approved of such a sentiment, and he had no desire to be lectured.

Valjean was speaking. With difficulty, Javert drew his mind away from the macabre to focus on the other man's words.

"- purpose is not limited to the service of human Law alone," he was saying. "Compassion is surely the Law of God, and takes precedence."

Javert huffed quietly. "In any event, it is irrelevant. We will soon be drowned and it will cease to matter."

"Perhaps," Valjean said severely, "if our predicament is as dire as you claim, learning to embrace compassion has never mattered more."

Javert made no reply. Compassion he had always seen as weakness, and yet Valjean seemed to think otherwise. Love was wholly foreign to him. What use was love to an unloved Romani bastard? He had given up on it since early in his boyhood.

In the frigid water, Javert found his chest pressed indecently close against Valjean's back. The man had said nothing of it, however, and as the alternative was the immediate dispersal of his depleted body heat in the water, the Inspector attempted to ignore their proximity. Provided that they did not speak, this was almost easy in the blackness. Still, every couple of minutes, one of Valjean's feet would brush against the Inspector's as he kept them both afloat, and Javert's neck was developing a crick as his head stayed turned to the side to avoid the back of Valjean's own head. It was altogether an awkward position.

Their ankles brushed against each other again. "Sorry," Valjean grunted.

"Mmm," came the Inspector's gruff acknowledgment. Truly, he thought, the less they talked, the better.

All at once, his side bumped up against the wall. They had, in the darkness, drifted unwittingly back to the edge of the room. With a soft sigh of relief, Valjean gripped the stone with one hand, allowing himself some rest on one side while the other continued to buoy them both. It struck Javert again just how odd it was that Valjean should rescue him.

"You would swim better if you were not carrying my weight," he pointed out.

"You cannot carry your own," Valjean reminded him. "And it is no burden to help another."

Javert shook his head impatiently. "Spare me your platitudes, Valjean," he said. "You clearly underestimate your current power over me."

"I haven't any power over you," answered Valjean, as if the very notion insulted him.

"You do," Javert insisted. "And the fact that you are not cognizant of it is as troubling as it is ludicrous. You need only pry my fingers from your shoulders to send me to my death. Or," and here he laughed, in the manner of one who has had far too much time to contemplate his own mortality, "you are a strong man - far more powerful than I. 'Twould be little struggle for you to force my head under water, just enough to drown. You could ask anything of me - do you not see that?! - and use my terror of water to break me to your will."

It seemed like a long time before Valjean answered, and his hand crawled slowly up the wall as the water level rose.

Finally, he said softly, "You have been an ill-used man if you must fear such things. Hurting you - coercing you - these could not be further from my mind."

Javert tossed his head loftily. "I am a member of the police. I am paid for my suspicious nature."

Valjean made a sound which might have been a laugh. "In that case, I suspect you are severely under-paid," he muttered.

"For once, we may be in agreement," Javert murmured back. He paused. "The room is still flooding, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Mmm."

"I think..." Valjean said slowly. "I think I can feel the ceiling."

Gripping the other man's shoulder more tightly with his left hand, Inspector Javert reached tentatively up with his right. His fingers ghosted over wooden planks mere inches above his head.

"I think you are not mistaken," he said tightly, returning to a more neutral position.

"Javert..." said Valjean hesitantly, "I would... have us perish in amiable company, at least."

"You are asking friendship of me?" the Inspector queried incredulously. "Then perhaps you are not a fool, but entirely mad."

"Is that impossible, then?" asked the older man. He had the audacity to sound sincerely saddened.

"Nevermind _impossible_," Javert said. "That you should even desire it, or ask it of me without mockery is surely a mental instability on your part. You may do your charity work, Valjean, you may, howsoever briefly, extend the length of my miserable existence, but surely to seek accord with the likes of me is no different than the angel that reaches out to its demon."

"And tell me, Javert," said Valjean softly, "does not our Lord offer his hand to all sinners, even unto Lucifer himself, in the hopes that they might one day take it? We need not agree on all things, Inspector, but we also need not be enemies."

All that Javert managed to say to this was, "You are not God."

"No," Valjean chuckled quietly. "And Heaven forbid I ever claim to be. But neither are you. We both are men, mortal and fallible, and capable of friendship. Must we deny ourselves that?"

Something deep in the Inspector's core felt fragile, a thin sheet of glass supporting a great load and ready to snap. He held back from the feeling, clinging to a sense of harsh normalcy, but it was like sliding inexorably down a steep incline - gradual, but gathering speed, a juggernaut of emotional inertia. His fingers found the stone wall and clutched at it, grinding the leather of his gloves into the gritty texture and bruising his fingertips.

"Valjean," he said shortly, breath coming in smaller gasps. "Valjean, I -"

He broke off as the crown of his head brushed against the ceiling. Careful not to let Javert slip, Valjean turned himself around so that he floated chest to chest with the Inspector, the taller man's hand now on his opposite shoulder.

"God have mercy on our souls," he murmured.

"I doubt you've much to worry about," Javert smirked slightly in the darkness, "seeing as you seem to have put in a high bid for a sainthood."

Valjean chuckled. "I've never seen it that way, you know," he said. "I owe a man my life and my soul, and I can only ever strive to be worthy of them."

Javert shook his head. "Religious sentiment aside, Valjean, I -"

"Jean."

"What?" The Inspector found that the query had come out harsher than he had intended, but the other man replied serenely.

"Jean," he repeated. "If we are mere minutes from death, as seems increasingly likely, then you might try to recall my Christian name."

The Inspector found himself unable to respond, aware that to refuse would be inappropriate, but also unwilling to comply.

After a moment, Valjean tentatively asked, "And yours?"

"My what?"

"Christian name."

Javert drew a sharp breath through his teeth. "I don't use it, Val - Jean."

"But -"

"I said I_ don't use it_."

"Sorry." The apology was soft, and Javert hated how heartfelt it sounded. Valjean's voice managed to pierce every crack in what he had long believed to be ironclad armor, poking and prodding at emotions he had no interest in naming. "- shouldn't have pressed the issue," Valjean was continuing.

"No, it's... fine," said the Inspector. "Most people are surprised when I tell them as much."

"Even so, I shouldn't have insisted, especially as I was the one hoping we might come out of this friends -"

"And here I was of the impression that saints were quiet folk," Javert grumbled with a hint of humor. "But you can't seem to stop talking."

Valjean broke off mid-sentence, then laughed.

"I do believe you just made a joke."

The Inspector rolled his eyes. "Not exactly how I envisioned my deathbed, this - minutes from drowning and poking fun at an old convict. Isn't particularly dignified, is it?"

"Javert - oof," Valjean finished ruefully as his own head now floated high enough in the water to knock against the ceiling.

"So, this is it," muttered the Inspector. "Five minutes more, perhaps, before the room is wholly flooded, and then we meet our maker."

"You never know. Perhaps the flooding will stop at the last minute," Valjean said, though it was apparent he did not believe his reassurances.

"Mmm," Javert hummed dryly. "Does piety demand such self-delusion? I hadn't thought so, but perhaps I was mistaken."

"Where there is life, there is hope," the older man said obstinately.

"Well, there shan't _be_ life here much longer," pointed out the Inspector, and as the chill of the water reached up and stroked his jawline, Javert shuddered and cold panic squeezed his chest. Though noble perhaps in sentiment, Valjean's efforts had rescued neither of them, and it was only when the other man spoke his name in concern that the Inspector realized his breath was coming in heaving pants.

"We're going to die." He had said as much at the beginning of the afternoon, but in the blackness and the swiftly narrowing gap of air, the statement held a finality it had not previously possessed.

"Yes," Valjean said simply. "It rather seems like we are."

"I do not want to die like this," Javert hissed.

"I know."

"I cannot -"

"I know." Valjean's voice was softer this time, nearly a whisper, and his breath warm on Javert's face. The Inspector could see nothing, but decades of experience told him that their heads could only be inches apart in the black abyss of a room.

His head bobbed, and Javert flinched as the water closed over his lips.

The moment was a brief one, but even once he steadied himself, he found the liquid now graced the lower curve of his cheekbones. Valjean's voice broke in on him as if from a far way off, murmuring pointlessly to allay inescapable fears. For himself, it would not have surprised Javert if the surface of the water were rippling with the force of his heart beating against his ribcage.

* * *

It was clear to Valjean that all of his efforts were having little effect on the Inspector's distress, and the fear was catching. The hairs along the nape of his neck were soaked, and even the faint stubble under his mouth was dripping with water.

Jean Valjean had little interest in dying. He had fought most of his life for freedom and for the sort of existence he chose, and while the prospect of Heaven was comforting, he had expected to be older when he entered the afterlife. More pressing was the issue of Javert himself. In that instant, Valjean would have given anything to ensure the other man's safe escape. He was therefore only vaguely surprised to find himself pressing his lips to the trembling Inspector's.

Javert went very, very still. The kiss was brief, chaste, a soft press of skin on skin, like the brush of pale spring rosebuds. It was only as he pulled back that it occurred to Valjean to wonder why, exactly, he had done that.

"What," came Javert's voice, cold and flat, "was that?"

"Ah," Valjean fumbled for an answer. "I'm not entirely certain."

"You kissed me." The Inspector's tone was accusatory, for which the other man could not particularly blame him.

"I didn't precisely_ mean_ to," Valjean explained helplessly. "It just sort of... happened."

"You kissed me, but you didn't mean to," Javert echoed back.

"It was meant to be a distraction - I - I didn't think."

Javert let out a quiet hiss of air.

"Do you know," he said, "it would almost have been better if you _had_ meant it? But, heavens, if your God can forgive all sins hitherto, then perhaps He would forgive that one as well."

"Truly..." Valjean said quietly. "Would you rather that I meant it?"

In the darkness, he sensed something like a shrug from the Inspector.

"It would be a novelty," he said, "and something which -"

The rest of his speech was cut off by a spluttering and a cough as the Inspector tried and failed to keep his head above water.

"Damn it," he growled, tight lipped.

"Tilt your head back," Valjean instructed, having to do the same himself as the insidious liquid pawed at his jowls. He closed his eyes, altogether too cognizant of the closeness of the ceiling, of how little air was left.

"Jean." The name came as a desperate gasp, an exhalation more sigh than inflection, and to hear it drove a pain through Valjean's chest which had nothing to do with shortness of breath.

The bridge of his nose pressed against the smoothness of the ceiling. "Yes?" he replied.

"Forgive me."

"I did. I have. You must -" He spit out the water spilling into his open mouth "- must forgive yourself."

There was pressure on his face and on his neck - fingers, he realized, clad in leather gloves. The water at last closed over them, the whole room flooded, and Valjean felt his breath catch in his chest, bubbles struggling free of his nostrils and lips. Javert, just as engulfed, pulled him closer, a single point of comfort to focus upon as his chest grew hot and strained for want of oxygen, and the easy swimmer's motion of his legs, which had kept them buoyant for so long, faltered.

Water pooled under his eyelids, forced its way into his ears, into his lungs, and still Javert clutched him with something appropriately akin to a death grip. A deeper darkness than mere absence of light gathered in the corners of his consciousness. He could feel himself sinking.

In his last moments of consciousness, he felt Javert press his mouth against Valjean's own; perhaps Valjean smiled into the gesture, though he was not sure he had autonomy over his own faculties any longer. And then there was a gurgling roar in his ears, as of a whirlpool or a maelstrom, but he could think nothing of it.

His lungs gave out. Water overtook him, and he succumbed to the darkness.


	2. Divertissement

At long last, I am proud to present the second and final part of this piece of work. My apologies for taking so long to write it. Content warnings for this chapter include burns, psychological torture, and a bit of self-inflicted injury, so fair warning to you all. It also continues to contain mild slash. Thank you, and enjoy.

* * *

Divertissement

Erik could not have failed to miss the sound of doors slamming shut in their frames, or of running feet descending flight of stairs after flight of stairs. Had Fauchelevent, who he came to learn was in fact named Valjean, stopped a floor earlier, there would have been no problem, but then he continued and stumbled across the organ instead, and that simply was too close for comfort. Old as it was, Erik was hardly concerned about the instrument, but if word of its existence slipped out, there was always the possibility that the unconventionality of it would draw curious passersby to his corner of the theater, and that he would not stand for.

Throwing the door of the storage space shut behind him and the Inspector had been child's play. Afterward, it had been a simple matter to reroute water from his lake to fill the room, and that, at least initially, was to have been the end of it, and of them.

The masked man drummed his fingers against his side. It was what happened next, he decided, which had really made for an interesting turn, for where he had anticipated that Valjean would leave the officer to drown, the man instead saved his life.

Erik could not fathom it, and apparently neither could the Inspector. Intrigued, the Phantom changed his mind, prolonged their lives, if only to see what they would do.

He pulled a lever and opened a hatch he had never before had cause to use. As a puppeteer with his marionettes, the Phantom listened to the rush of escaping water and leaned his back against the cold stone wall, calculating. It had been a long time since he had had any entertainment.

They would be wise to not disappoint him.

* * *

Consciousness did not return to Valjean quickly. Gradually, the darkness surrounding him lightened in its density, and his thoughts came back to him in a daze, as if through a thick fog. He was aware first of a great pressure in the region of his forehead, and of a dim glow emanating from somewhere above him. Little by little, a sense of presence overcame him, of the hard coldness that was the floor, of the drenched fabric clinging to him like a second skin, and finally of the small bead of water trailing slowly down his cheek.

With a hacking cough, which dislodged some of the liquid from his lungs, Valjean clutched at the ground, dragging himself upright. He was stiff, horribly stiff, as if someone had run his muscles through a laundry wringer but had not bothered with his clothes. He rubbed his face hard, wiping away the residual moisture, before trying to get a grip on his surroundings.

Was he dead? This was the first question which he posed to himself, and he had to conclude he was not. His pulse beat in the hollow of his throat, and he rather doubted that souls in heaven usually came to feeling quite so abused.

Blinking blearily, Valjean identified the source of the light as belonging to a gas lamp. Three barrels sat below it, and behind him was the hideous pipe organ. Struggling to his feet, the man came to the only realization of which he was capable: he was still in the storeroom. And yet, how, he wondered, when the chamber had been most assuredly full of water? He ought to have drowned - had been drowning. Turning slowly in place, Valjean made a full half-turn and then stopped in astonishment.

Set into the floor was a grate. He must have been lying over the top of it. Bending at the knee, Valjean prodded the chilled metal curiously. It was a drain, plainly, and a few feet below the floor hovered the meniscus of the water level. From somewhere nearby issued a grinding noise; Valjean snatched his hand away immediately, looking around in alarm. It was perhaps as well that he did so, for as he watched, the grate slid with a groan under the stone on the far side, displaced by a wooden block topped with the same flagstone as the floor. Within moments, the grate and the remainder of the water had disappeared, the concealing stone lifting up by inches and fitting like a puzzle piece exactly into place, flush with the ground.

The man was unsettled, to say the least. It was evident that he had been entirely correct in his earlier deduction, and someone was pulling strings behind the scenes. He turned, intent on telling the Inspector, when another thought occurred to him, even heavier than the last.

The thought, simply put, was this: Javert was not there.

Looking left and right and then left again, Valjean was forced to confront this ugly truth. The man had entirely vanished, though his greatcoat still lay across the barrel where it had been abandoned some hours earlier. The older gentleman's eye caught on the door. It stood open, not entirely, but by perhaps a foot, and so in his stupefaction he had not latched onto the detail earlier. The Inspector had gone out, then.

Valjean stared at the door, and felt a tiny nudge of betrayal lance his heart. Surely Javert must have thought to check on him, at least, before he wandered off. It seemed unlike the Inspector to leave an unconscious party unattended - peradventure there had been some emergency that demanded his withdrawal. And yet, this led him to another supposition, one which he liked little to acknowledge.

Javert had indicated in his words that the two of them had reached some sort of accord, but even so, Valjean could not suppress the thrill of fear running through him, nor the wondering, incessant and parasitic, if the Inspector, in fleeing the scene, had not in fact gone to summon his officers, intending to return whilst Valjean was still insensible and cart him off to trial and judgement.

For a moment, he considered running. He could retrace his steps easily enough, but if the Inspector had indeed decided on his arrest, then the chance of running into him on the stairs was simply too high. That left him only with the option of creeping further into the inner core of the theater. Before, he would not have so much as hesitated. Now, however, his eyes darted back to the floor, where he knew a metal grille was hidden under flagstone. He glanced again at where Javert's greatcoat lay, still dripping, and a frown puckered his lips.

If he knew the Inspector - and after three decades, he reckoned that he did - then the man would never have left the garment behind. He was far too fond of his uniform to discard it in such a disrespectful manner. Once more, Valjean turned to stare distrustfully at the floor, a third suspicion now unfolding itself for consideration.

"What do you want with us?" the man whispered aloud, glaring at the cold slabs of rock as if they could hear him. Perhaps they could.

Abruptly, Valjean turned and hoisted the coat over his shoulder. Casting one final look around the small chamber, he shook his head and stepped around the heavy door into the hall. No sooner had he done so than another mystery revealed itself. The hallway floor, which by all rights should have been as damp as the floor of the organ room, was entirely dry. Had anyone else walked down that passage, there was no trace which might have directed their attention to the side chamber. Valjean blinked as he considered this peculiarity, unable to make sense of it.

As he stared in consternation, unsure where to begin, the door across the hall and to his right swung noiselessly open on its hinges. With bated breath, he waited for someone to emerge, but no one, man or ghost alike, appeared under the framing.

"Hello?" Valjean called out uncertainly. "Javert?"

There came no response but the soft sigh of air escaping. Valjean edged along the wall until he could stare into the gloom beyond, though this did nothing to elucidate the situation. He weighed his options. There was certainly no convincing him to return to the organ room to wait, as so much as the thought of the water made him tremble, but there also was no telling where Javert had gone. If he had simply left to explore, then perhaps it was better to wait where he was, and for all he knew, this new room was simply another trap. Indeed, that the door had opened under its own power struck him as more than a little ominous.

The greatcoat weighed on his shoulder, and Valjean wavered. Had the Inspector left willingly? There was no way to know. Slowly, the door began to swing shut, and the man panicked. If Javert were in there, intentionally or otherwise, he would be caught again. It was this thought which spurred him to dash across the hall and force his way past the inexorably closing artifice. Still, as it clicked shut behind him, he could not suppress the cold chill of foreboding.

He squinted into the dimness, his eyes requiring a moment to adjust. This chamber had no gas lamp, and should have been utterly dark, but where there ought to have been a back wall to the room, there was only an opening. Gradually, he came to the realization that the wall, for there must have been one, had been rolled away, exposing some larger chamber behind it. Mouth set in a grim line, Valjean tried the door handle behind him. As he had suspected, it was locked. With steadily increasing trepidation, he padded across the floor to the gaping hole and looked out.

Directly in front of him was a narrow staircase, which ended at a floor carved smoothly out of black bedrock. Valjean descended the stairs, attempting to get his bearings. There was no subterranean cave marked on any of the Opéra House blueprints, of this he was certain. On the other hand, he was not entirely clear on where he was, as his intent in running down to the lower levels had been born purely of the desire to evade capture, and as such he had paid little mind to the specifics of his location. As best as he could guess, however, the cave had to extend, at least in part, under the main stage. He thought again of the chorus girls' gossip, and wished that he had minded more closely their whispered scandalmongering.

To the right of the stair was only a wall carved of the same stone, but to the left was a hypostyle hall, three lines of thick columns rising seamlessly from the floor and disappearing into a ceiling too high to make out. The single source of light was a lamp that issued its glow from the far partition, which was itself likely a story in height, but which seemed comically squat in comparison to the vastness of the chthonic space.

Winding his way through the columns, Valjean came to a stop under the light, standing in the yellowish pool of its shine. Just to his left, a coal-black door was sunk into the partition, which the gentleman found had, in fact, been wallpapered. He ran his fingers curiously over the incongruity. The pattern was Persian, a soft blue and gold paisley.

His eyes caught again on the door. If he were stuck down there, he decided, he may as well explore what he could. With luck, some of the mysteries might resolve themselves. Though the door, he discovered, was solid iron, it had no handle in the conventional sense. Instead, a small depression was set into the metal, which what pressed, caused it to open with a groan and a pop. Whatever was inside, he had no way of telling, as it was utterly without illumination.

He listened for a moment, but heard nothing besides the sound of his own breathing. With a shake of his head, he was about to step back when something shoved him hard between the shoulder blades. Stumbling forward, Valjean pivoted back around, but not in time to stop the door sliding shut with an insidious snap.

In dismay, Valjean reached forward and pressed his hands to the door, looking for a way out. To his surprise, it was not metal he found under his fingertips, but something as smooth as glass. As he searched desperately in the dark for the depression, he felt the glass begin to slide out from under his fingers. It took him but a moment to understand, and he stepped back in horror. The walls were spinning, slowly at first, but picking up speed. It was with a sinking heart that comprehension dawned on him; he would never be able to find his way back out.

* * *

Javert came around all at once, blinking himself awake. His first thought was for his hair, which he could tell was in terrible disarray. His clothes, also, were still damp. The white collared shirt he wore was going to be irreparably wrinkled where it clung limply to his chest, and no amount of ironing would ever flatten it.

As his awareness reasserted itself, he came to notice that sense of fatigue and discomfort which only results from remaining in one position for too long. He glanced down at himself - as nearly as he could tell, he was tied arm and leg to a garden chair, his hands tight behind his back. He attempted to give himself an experimental rock, but the chair did not so much as budge. Bolted to the ground, then, he decided.

It seemed that Valjean had been correct - they had survived the flood, although he could not imagine the how of it. He turned his head to see if the older man were conscious, and received an unpleasant shock. Valjean was nowhere to be found, similarly bound or otherwise.

The Inspector felt his heart beat faster as he considered the possibilities. Someone had moved him, that much was plain. He could see little, for there was darkness all around, but by what he could make out, he was now someplace far larger in volume than the flooded chamber. There was the feeling of vastness around him, a claustrophobic heaviness which a great emptiness may sometimes impart.

Moreover, someone had to have propped him up in the chair and tied him to it. Suspicions fell like raindrops across the canvas of his thoughts. Was there indeed a third party toying with the pair of them, or was the culprit Valjean himself, not content to trust Javert's sense of honor and fearing arrest?

He did not have long to wait to find out. Apparently seeing he was awake, someone made their way up behind him, the quiet rustle of fabric betraying their presence.

"Good morning, Inspector," came Valjean's voice.

Javert closed his eyes, resignation falling like a mantle across his shoulders. He could not believe he had let himself be taken in by the convict's proffered friendship, and he tried to ignore the part of him which was disappointed.

"Your officers have abandoned you," Valjean continued. "They cleared off with the rising of the dawn star. I admit, I was most put out when I discovered the police swarming like flies over my Opéra House, but in the end, it seems to have worked out. I remain undiscovered, and I also have you as a bargaining chip."

"Damn it, Valjean," the Inspector growled. "Does nothing you said mean anything to you?"

Valjean laughed, except that then it was no longer his laugh, but one which was deeper and colder, like the first icy wind of winter.

"'Valjean'," the voice mocked, suddenly sounding startlingly like Javert himself, "'does nothing you said mean anything to you?' Rich indeed, Monsieur l'Inspector," it continued, now in a tone which Javert did not recognize. "What about you yourself? Could it be that you meant nothing by your own words of forgiveness? You seem very quick to suspect the man who saved your life last night."

Javert shook his head furiously, as if he could dislodge the seed of truth in these words.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "Stop lurking in the shadows."

A cloaked figure appeared in the Inspector's peripheral vision, blacker yet than the enveloping darkness, and paced a circle around the chair to which Javert was tied.

"I?" The figment drew out his words, as though weighing each before pronouncing it. "A curious question, Monsieur, with a curious answer. I am many things - a polymath, you might say. I play architect and engineer, musician and composer, stagehand and performer, Heaven's own angel, or the demon spawn of Hell; it really depends on my disposition." A flash graced the lightless space as he grinned manically to himself. "But I suppose," he concluded, coming to a stop in front of the Inspector, "that you would call me the, 'imaginary Phantom of the fatuous Opéra'."

As the apparition laughed mirthlessly, several things occurred to Javert in a highly compressed frame of time. The first was that he had behaved like a doubting Thomas and owed Jean Valjean an apology, a notion which sat about as well in his stomach as sour grapes, but one which was true nevertheless. The second was that the whole affair had been a set-up, just as Valjean had hypothesized, which likely meant that Javert owed him two apologies. The third was that if precedent were anything by which to judge, then he was in even greater peril than he had at first presumed.

Of course, understanding that one is in dire straights and behaving as though one is in such are two entirely different things. While Javert recognized that it was unwise to bait his captor, he was also more than a little angry, and the man had a sharp tongue even at the best of times.

"You seem awfully lively to be calling yourself a ghost. Why don't you pull that hood off so I can identify you in a lineup," suggested Javert, glowering.

The self-professed Phantom raised his hands to his head, drawing back the hood of the cloak he wore. Underneath, his face was hidden beneath a bone-white mask except for his lips, which twisted into a ghoulish smile, exposing yellowed, crooked teeth.

"Any better?" he asked sardonically.

"Only a coward hides behind a mask," said Javert superciliously. "Are you so frightened of being recognized?"

The Phantom's tone remained light, but in the deep recesses of his eyes, something colder glittered.

"Oh, believe me, Monsieur l'Inspector," he said smoothly, clasping his gloved hands in front of him, "should I ever remove my mask, it will be you, and not I, who is the frightened one." So saying, he drew his cloak back over his face, rendering him nearly invisible. He then pulled a length of fabric from within his cloak. "_Terribly_ sorry, Monsieur, but I simply cannot have you interrupting. My script is very precise, you see."

Immediately recognizing the gag for what it was, Javert resolved to be as thoroughly uncooperative as possible, and so it was that as the Phantom circled back around behind him, the Inspector waited. The moment that skin-tight gloves brushed the nape of his neck, he jerked in the chair, knocking his head hard against the chest of his captor. The Phantom stumbled back, more out of surprise than any actual hurt.

"Not a specter after all, then," Javert muttered.

"You've more fight about you than it looks," the masked man said, grudgingly impressed. "Though perhaps it is only desperation; I suppose that remains to be seen." He grabbed a fistful of the Inspector's hair and pulled his head back. "Don't resist, and it'll go easier for you."

"I'll be damned first," Javert spat by way of reply.

"Beware of what you wish for."

There was a brief struggle, but while Javert could undoubtedly hold his own in a fair fight, his bondage left him little room to maneuver, and the Phantom had quite a bit of muscle concealed beneath his cape. It was not long before a hearty blow to the head left the Inspector trying to uncross his eyes, mouth stuffed with cotton cloth and another strip of the same running tight around his head, over his lips.

The Phantom sighed in satisfaction. "And now," he pronounced, "it is nearly time for our final player to enter, stage left. Permit me to give him his cue."

He stalked across the floor nearly ten paces before he disappeared.

Craning his neck, Javert tried to make sense of it. The darkness refused his eyes focus, but a moment later, a gas light flared, and the architecture was thrown into stark relief as the flame spiked. The Inspector was seated in the center of a plane raised perhaps fifteen feet off the floor; it was down the side of this platform that the Phantom must have vanished, lighting his lamp below. The platform continued in front of the Inspector another five feet, before it dropped off into an abyss shrouded by the walls which surrounded it.

A flash of motion directed Javert's attention back to the far side of what he could now identify as some sort of cave. Though from that distance, the Inspector could not determine the means of it, the Phantom tripped some switch which rolled back part of a wall on a hidden track. A faint shaft of light came through the opening, but as he watched, it narrowed and shrank, as though a door somewhere on the other side had closed.

Hardly a moment later, a white-haired gentleman peered around the side of the wall, glancing up and down. Javert was conflicted; if he tried to warn Valjean of the immediate danger, the man might make use of his good sense and get himself to safety. On the other hand, there was every likelihood that he would instead abandon reason and do something foolish trying to rescue the Inspector. Much as Javert would have loved to see the alleged Phantom get what he had coming to him, he also recognized that the creature had already proven himself a more than capable adversary, and Valjean was unarmed.

It was with this that he decided to remain silent, avoiding even those inarticulate noises which someone in his position remained capable of making, for Javert had no desire to be used as bait.

He watched as Valjean meandered his way across the floor through the columns, hoping every moment that he would turn back and leave, but the man continued to approach the wall which abutted with the platform's leading edge; in due time, the same structure masked Javert's view. Even so, the Inspector's keen ears detected a door opening. A moment passed, after which Valjean gave a cry of alarm and Javert started.

He had little time to wonder at what had happened, however, for scarcely a minute after the fact, the floor under his feet began to shake. Whatever monstrous structure it was which hid itself in darkness before the platform, he could pick out the edges of it moving as the behemoth began to turn.

The contraption spun for perhaps thirty seconds before it came to a standstill. The Phantom vaulted himself back up onto the platform and divested himself of his cape with a flourish. Underneath, he wore a white button-down with black slacks, not unlike the outfit which the Inspector himself wore.

As the vibrating floorboards came to a rest, the Phantom barked, "Valjean!"

Inwardly, the Inspector groaned. As before, the Phantom had borrowed Javert's own voice. It took the Inspector no stretch of the imagination to guess why.

* * *

"Javert!" Valjean exclaimed, staring up the side of the room to where his eyes could dimly pick out the profile of a tall figure. "Thank goodness, I was getting -"

"Silence."

The word reverberated around the space with an ironic echo that left his ears and his thoughts ringing as all his most unpleasant suspicions were at once confirmed. That imperious, superior tone was the same which Javert reserved for those he was intent on chaining behind bars.

"Is there a problem?" Valjean asked quietly, evenly, hoping in spite of himself there had been some misunderstanding.

"I thought I told you to be still," came the scornful reply.

"I've never been very good at doing what you told me," Valjean reminded him, even as a pain blossomed in his chest like briars. He smothered this quickly, too used to the man's mistrust and derision to allow it to get the better of him.

"And here I had anticipated a sort of challenge," mused Javert's voice from atop the wall. "But you walked in here like a rat into a cage. You're getting complacent, old man."

"Well, forgive my concern for your safety," said Valjean icily. "Would you please be reasonable, for once in your life?"

"I am being entirely reasonable," came the curt response. "And if you think that I am going to turn you loose now, you are mistaken."

"But _why -_" Valjean strangled a shout. "I thought we had an _understanding -_"

The mordant laugh which rebounded off of the walls was only too familiar, and to hear it chilled his blood.

"An understanding?" A dangerous cast overcame the Inspector's voice. "Are you truly so naïve that you thought I would not say anything, agree to anything, if only to keep myself alive until I could escape?"

His eyes burning with frustration, Valjean pounded his fist against the silky glass of the wall. "Damn it, Javert! Listen to me - I am not the man you think I am!"

"No," the man agreed softly. "You are not. You are worse, worse than I ever suspected, and I cannot take the chance that you will elude justice again."

Valjean snorted. "If this is your notion of justice, than I'll count myself fortunate to have had as little to do with it as possible."

"You will not leave this place," Javert continued as though he had not heard. "I will not allow it."

"You couldn't kill me before," Valjean shook his head. "What makes you think you can now?"

"I?" There was a pause, and then a laugh which turned from cold to cruel, and not a little bit mad. "I will not have to. All I have to do is turn on the light."

In the quiet which ensued, the soft scritch of a stick against a matchbook resounded like a gunshot, and Valjean stepped tentatively back from the wall as a flame flickered up above.

The other man turned away from his higher vantage point, and an instant later, a brilliant white light poured down into the chamber where Valjean stood trapped. Valjean clapped his hand over his eyes, struck blind by the sudden brightness. As his vision streamed, he blinked them back into focus, able for the first time to make out the room where he was locked. For a long moment, he thought he was seeing double.

The smoothness of the walls, which Valjean had taken for some sort of glass, came in actuality from seamless panels of mirror which lined an octagonal space, open at the top. It was through this open air that the light poured, striking and bouncing off of the mirrors. The effect was such that a thousand Valjeans reflected back at him, the dimensions of the room multiplied ad infinitum.

"Do you understand yet?" The mocking question came from the top of the wall, where Valjean, squinting, could vaguely make out his captor's silhouette. "In a matter of hours, you will be dead, and I have only to sit and watch."

Valjean glanced around, perplexed. Just as he was about to propose that no, he could not imagine what the Inspector meant to happen, he felt a faint ghost of warmth across the back of his clammy neck, and his mouth tightened as the other shoe dropped.

The mirrors reflected not only what he could see, but also that which was invisible to the human eye. The gentle heat of a small flame, innocuous enough on its own, would when paired with a reflective surface ricochet wildly off of the thing. As it stood, the chamber, totally lined with mirrors, would volley the heat back and forth on all sides, building upon and amplifying itself, until the space was transformed into an oven. The Inspector, it seemed, intended to burn Valjean alive.

* * *

It would be incorrect to say that Javert was furious. Javert had long since transcended a state of mere fury. That the Phantom would dare to steal his voice and his name to lie and deceive was utterly nauseating. Moreover, he knew Valjean had no cause to suspect the Phantom of being an imposter, as Javert himself had provided the man with plenty of evidence to suggest him capable of hatred, and the Inspector knew that with scarcely a dozen words, the Phantom had shattered the tenuous bond of trust the previous evening had established.

As Valjean beat his desperation into the wall below, Javert attempted to make some sort of noise, if only a muffled exclamation, so that perhaps his friend might hear him, but he choked on the wad of cloth shoved between his teeth and he doubled over, coughing mutely.

The Phantom turned his back on the makeshift prison, burning match in hand, to whisper, "Enjoying the show?", and the Inspector swore to himself that come what may, he would wipe the demented smirk off of that masked face if it were the last thing he ever did.

The Phantom tossed the lit wood into a box where it caught on an oil-doused wick. Not only that, but the box must have been lined with mirrors of its own, for the light which issued from it in a glaring beam was far brighter than it had any right to be. This beam in turn the Phantom directed down into his trap.

Inspector Javert registered little of this, however, as he was steadfastly attempting to loosen his bonds. His captor's knotwork was excellent, there was no denying it, and his hands were tingling with numbness where circulation ceased. His progress, such as it was, was therefore negligible.

Discontent to waste his time, he turned his attention instead to the cloth gagging him; his jaw ached, and his throat constricted as the cotton slowly wicked away the moisture there. The strip tied over his face was also beginning to chafe at the corners of his mouth.

Cocking his head at an odd angle, Javert found it possible to drag the strip of fabric against his shoulder. The cloth would not catch. Surreptitiously, he glanced at the Phantom, but the man was crouched like a cat, watching Valjean intently and paying the Inspector little mind. Trying again, he felt it slip slightly, but it, too, was tightly tied.

An aggravated groan slipped around the edges of the fabric, and the Phantom glanced back at him. Javert feigned defeat, slumping where he sat, but even as he waited for their captor to look away, he reconsidered his options.

Gripping his frustration in the iron vice of his self-control, Javert forced himself to remain calm. He slouched and twisted as much as he was able, such that he could contort his head backward and pull the fabric against the knobbed ear of the chair.

The back of his neck pressed uncomfortably against the top rail, but with this, the cloth caught and shifted. More determined than ever, he pulled at it again, scratching his jawline where the metal finial grazed his stubble, but he found it well worth the discomfort as the fabric finally tugged its way over and off of his his lower lip. Mouth free, he quietly spat out the second piece of cloth, feeling his jaw crack as it relaxed.

He looked up with just enough time to witness Valjean, who had walked to the center of the trap-room, charge at the opposite wall and slam against it, but the edifice barely trembled, and the mirror did not so much as begin to fracture.

The man pummeled the silver-backed glass with his fists, and there was a crunch; he stepped back ruefully, and Javert could make out a red stain on his knuckles shining in the light. A rough circle of shattered glass broke the otherwise unscathed mirror.

"You'll never break it all," the Phantom taunted, standing to walk along the top of the wall. "Accept the inevitable."

As the Phantom moved away, Javert took his chance.

"Jean!" he shouted, wincing as his dry throat cracked on the word.

Valjean's head shot up in surprise and confusion, even as the masked man spun around.

"He's throwing his voice," Javert continued, speaking faster as the Phantom turned to dart back in his direction, reaching for something at his side. "Don't listen to a word -"

A coarse rope tightened around Javert's neck, strangling his windpipe and cutting him off mid-speech.

"Well played, Monsieur," murmured the Phantom in his ear, "but not well enough, I'm afraid."

Javert choked on a curse by way of reply, and the Phantom chuckled quietly to himself.

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that."

"Javert?" Both men glanced up at the sound of Valjean's voice; evidently, the man had wandered over nearer their side of the wall again. "Are you up there?"

The Phantom hissed through his teeth. "You've quite spoiled my pretense," he said softly. "I could kill you for that."

Slowly asphyxiating as the noose tightened, the Inspector was unable to point out that the man was effectively managing that already.

"Still..." he continued thoughtfully, "perhaps that would be inconsiderate." He slackened the rope, and Javert gasped for breath, coughing wretchedly. "I'll give you a choice," said the Phantom magnanimously.

Javert felt a slight pressure at his wrists, and then his fingers burned as blood flowed back into them. Stretching somewhat, he found much to his surprise that their captor appeared to have cut the rope holding him in place. He stood slowly, every joint stiff and sore, only to turn and find a long, thin blade pointed peremptorily in his direction.

The Phantom held the rapier aloft with a practiced ease.

"How about this?" he suggested. "One of you may leave this place alive. The other will stay here and perish. I'll let you choose who gets the wrong end of the staff."

What Javert said in response was, "Is that my sword?"

"Hope you don't mind my borrowing it," the Phantom affirmed smugly, "but it would have been a shame to leave it to rust in all that water. Now, what will it be?"

"You're going to let one of us go?" Javert asked, mind racing.

"That is what I said."

The words came out of Javert's mouth before his thoughts caught up with them. "Then I am your prisoner."

Though his mask hid the greater part of the Phantom's face, something about the way his eyes narrowed and his head tilted suggested surprise.

"You are willing to die in his stead?"

"That is what I said," Javert mimicked contemptuously.

"Why?"

The query startled the Inspector, for truth be told, he was not entirely sure himself from where he had pulled this sudden draught of altruism.

"Your little trick with the water should have killed me," he said, speaking as much to himself as to anyone. "If not for his intervention, I would not even be here to have this asinine conversation. I owe him for that."

The Phantom sighed in apparent disappointment. "So your noble sacrifice is propelled merely by your sense of duty? That is hardly appropriate. No," he added. "No, that will not do at all. Excusez moi."

Before Javert had time to so much as think about moving out of the way, the Phantom knocked him off balance, pitching him over the edge of the platform. With a cry, the Inspector fell down into the room of mirrors.

* * *

Jean Valjean was not a stupid man. Indeed, had he been lacking in logical faculties, it was unlikely he would have succeeded in breaking his parole, let alone in managing a jewelry factory or the city of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that from the moment Javert shouted Valjean's given name from the top of the platform, he began to question immediately the identity of the individual who, until this point, had been masquerading as the Inspector. It did not hurt, either, that Valjean was inclined to see the best in everybody, and was therefore more willing than most to give Javert the benefit of the doubt.

There is a curious acoustical property which anyone who has ever stood under a dome has experienced, wherein sound, flowing outward, will riot off of the walls and strike the ceiling, from which it will in turn rebound and travel straight down to the floor. The result is that one speaking in such an enclosure can be heard, albeit imprecisely, from nearly anywhere within the space, no matter the volume at which one speaks. Such spaces exist outside of the built environment as well; some caves are fine examples of this.

It was also common knowledge, at least among those who discussed such things in whispered conversations, that the Phantom of the Opéra reveled in sound; he adored it as a pilgrim might adore the holy relic of a martyr. As such, he had seen to it that the space under the theater, which he claimed as his own, was as perfectly primed for the ear as it could be.

Now it could be said that this stylistic attention to detail worked for once in Valjean's favor over the Phantom's, for while he was unable to follow the entire conversation, Valjean, in creeping closer to the far side of the chamber, could make out the sound of two arguing voices on top of the wall, and thusly began to redraw his conclusions about the situation.

He was not prepared, however, for Javert to tumble backwards off of the platform, and as a result, the unfortunate Inspector landed hard, flat on his back. Valjean, horrified, rushed forward, but with a sputter, Javert waved him back. He took a couple of heaving breaths, his lungs not eager to re-inflate after having the air so harshly driven from them.

"Don't touch me," he muttered, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing the back of his head with a pained expression.

Valjean caught sight of the bruises purpling like a cord around the Inspector's neck, and he felt his stomach lurch, but knew the proud officer would not appreciate any comment on it.

Instead, he said hesitantly, "I'm sorry."

Javert, who had been adjusting the buttons on his shirt, glanced up.

"For what?" he asked gruffly.

Valjean spread his hands in a sort of shrug. "I should have known it was some sort of trick. You're many things, but you're not a liar. You wouldn't go back on your word."

Javert shook his head with a toss. "Don't dwell on it," he advised. "You're not the only one to be taken in by his ventriloquy."

Valjean's brow creased. "How do you mean?"

The Inspector looked back at him levelly. "Mine is not the only voice he knows how to mimic."

The older man exhaled slowly as comprehension dawned on him.

"He's talented, I see," Valjean murmured. "Although I suppose that goes without saying."

"Does it feel warm in here to you?" asked the Inspector, surveying the room. "And, is that my coat on the floor?"

"Yes it does, and yes it is," Valjean replied. "Still soaked through, I might add."

"Marvelous."

Valjean scanned the top of the wall, but even his sharp eyes could pick nothing out from the shadows beyond the glare of the light.

"Where do you suppose he's gotten off to?" he asked the Inspector quietly.

Javert shook his head in disgust. "So long as he isn't here, I don't much care."

A voice in the back of Valjean's thoughts reminded him pointedly that the Phantom had managed to nearly drown the both of them without being present, but he tamped down on this, as much for his own comfort as Javert's.

He refocused to find the Inspector speaking to him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I was asking," Javert said testily, "whether or not you were hurt."

Valjean repressed a laugh, for he knew Javert would only misinterpret it, but there was something comically touching in his ability to manage being both concerned and irritated simultaneously.

Instead he replied with, "No, not particularly. I cut my hand, but that's nothing." He paused a moment before adding, "Of the two of us, you look to be in the worse state."

Javert brushed this off. "Superficialities," he said. He stepped up to the mirror, looking at it carefully. He reached out a hand, but even as Valjean went to warn him, he pulled back. "You could fry an egg on this," he commented, before catching Valjean's eye in the mirror with the slightest of smiles. "I don't suppose you have one of those?"

"No," Valjean chuckled softly. "Pardon my being unprepared, Javert, but I'm not in the practice of carrying poultry products in my pockets."

The Inspector snorted, before asking, "How did you get in here?"

Valjean glanced around, his good humor fading. "There was a door," he said, pointing at the wall to the right of the platform. "It opened with the touch of a button, and then something - the Phantom, I would imagine - pushed me in, and it snapped shut. Then the walls spun, and," he raised his arms helplessly, "it could be anywhere now."

Javert shook his head. "You should have left as soon as you had the chance," he said.

"What, and leave you here?" challenged Valjean.

"Absolutely," Javert agreed.

"I was not about to go without knowing what had become of you," said Valjean flatly.

"Because that worked out so well for the both of us," came the sarcastic reply.

Valjean felt immediately contrite. "You're right, of course," he sighed heavily. "I should have been more careful. I knew there was every chance I was walking into a trap."

Something in Javert's face softened. With a harrumph, he said, "I suppose you're right in your own way. I should never have expected you to do the logical thing and let me to my fate. You've already proven yourself remarkably incapable of that."

Valjean accepted the backhanded compliment in the spirit with which it was meant. He settled back on his heels, fanning himself with his hand.

"Do you suppose we could find it?" he asked suddenly.

"Find what?"

"The door."

Javert considered this for a moment. "Even if we found it, it's sure to be locked," he pointed out. "A locked exit is less than useful."

"It's possible I could force it," Valjean reminded him, a determined light flaring in his eyes.

Javert gestured at the mirrors, and dozens of Inspectors copied his every move. "If you enjoy futility, then by all means, be my guest."

Valjean approached the wall warily. Even at a distance, he could feel the heat emanating from the panels. Aware that Javert was watching him, he pressed his hand to the nearest mirror, feeling for any minute irregularity which might suggest a hidden opening. He could feel nothing but the pulsating sear of the hot glass against his palm, though his fingers were too callused to accept much in the way of discomfort.

Curious, he pulled his hand back and examined it. The flesh was all red.

"You're going to burn yourself," commented the Inspector.

Valjean shook his head slowly. "No," he said, "it doesn't hurt. Not really."

"Your shirt is _steaming_," Javert said in exasperation.

Valjean looked down to find that, in fact, his wet clothes were noticeably drier and appeared to emit a fine white mist along their edges. He looked up.

"So is yours," he said, pointing.

Javert glanced at the garment before his eyes darted away. "Yes," was all he said in response.

His sense of urgency growing by the minute, Valjean continued to sweep his hands over the glass. Nowhere did his fingers find purchase.

* * *

Up above, the Phantom reclined in the garden chair which had until recently held the Inspector captive. He watched with amusement as the pair below him argued, and almost wished he had brought a bottle of wine to really enjoy the evening. The fulfillment to be derived from playing with people's lives was not to be underestimated.

His eyes followed Valjean as the man strove to locate the door, which even then was on nearly the other side of the room. The likelihood of his discovering it was slim enough on its own, and Erik knew, too, that should they come close he had only to spin the walls again to put them back where they started.

The pair bickered, stand-offish and distant. Erik crossed his legs in his chair, not the least bit amazed by how easy it was to instill them with dis-ease. Even as he watched, however, something of a camaraderie sprung back up between the two rivals. Together, they struck an odd balance, and he could not help but wonder how far it could be pushed.

Erik drew a breath, resting his fingers against his mouth. Perhaps, he thought, it was time for the god of the machine to pay a proper visit to his unwilling supplicants.

* * *

He had been standing at the wall for some time when a voice Valjean did not recognize issued from the partition above.

"Working together, Monsieurs? Consider me surprised."

Javert bared his teeth, glaring up the side of the wall.

"The bastard must be traipsing across the partition," he growled. "Doubtless, he's been off scheming, waiting for us to go berserk."

"Who was that?" Valjean asked in confusion.

"_That_ is the Phantom your chorus girls have gone daft over," the Inspector told him, continuing to scan the top of the wall for any sign of their captor.

"Valjean, you really were an excellent manager." This time, the voice came from the opposite side of the room, and the two men whirled around, Javert reaching for a sword which was not there. "Not like those dunderheads I usually have to deal with. The assumed name was a nice touch, and you even managed to pay my salary on time - most impressive."

Javert appeared flabbergasted. "You _paid_ this creature?"

Valjean gesticulated, lost for words. "I - He - How was I to know?"

"Twenty-thousand francs a month," came a sing-song sort of response from on high.

Javert ground his temples with his fingers. "Leave it to you to fund your own kidnapping."

"It's such a shame," the Phantom continued, his voice coming from yet another place. "And to think, all this is because you had to run down here to hide. Had you made for the roof, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"But -" Valjean said desperately, "- couldn't you simply let us go? I can continue to pay you - money is no object."

Javert gave him a look, hoping he would take the hint and stop trying to negotiate, but Valjean did not notice.

"Apologies," said the Phantom with obvious insincerity, "but tempting as your offer may be, I simply cannot accept. I do not allow anyone to leave my chambers alive. Consider it a security measure."

Valjean felt his hands clench into fists. "You gain nothing killing us!"

"Don't worry about your daughter," the voice went on as if he had not heard. "I'll see to it she's well-cared for. Who knows, perhaps I'll take her under my wing."

Breathing heavily, Valjean's face flushed. "You leave Cosette _out_ of this!"

"Stop talking," Javert hissed.

Valjean looked over at him, startled.

"Can't you see he's trying to get a rise out of you? You're letting him play you like a violin."

"But Cosette -"

"-Is not helped by this, so listen to me for once and _drop it_."

Valjean opened his mouth to reply, and then thought better of it. Instead, he moved back to face the wall, returning to his search for the door with an almost manic energy. His hands were beginning to blister from the heat, and the newly-scabbed skin on his knuckles cracked; he ignored this.

"You'll never find it," the Phantom called. "And you're running out of time."

The words echoed in the older man's head like a mantra long after they had ceased to resound off the walls. Picking up his pace, he had made it a solid quarter of the way around the room, still without any luck, when he stumbled. Valjean leaned against the wall, hearing the fabric of his shirt spit as the moisture sizzled out of it.

"Valjean?" Javert frowned at him. "Are you quite alright?"

"Yes," Valjean replied, getting back on his feet. "Just... dizzy, it would seem."

"Hmmm." Javert looked at him skeptically. "Perhaps you would do better to sit down."

"But -"

"I'll keep looking for this ridiculous door if I must," the Inspector interjected with a roll of his eyes, "although I still say it is a waste of effort. But you are going to overexert yourself."

Valjean shook his head obstinately. "I only tripped, hardly cause for alarm."

"You know better than that. Heat exhaustion will get the better of both of us."

"Which is why we have to find the door," Valjean maintained.

"If you say so."

Valjean knew Javert was waiting for him to sit, so he moved out of the way and had a seat on the floor, watching as the Inspector took his place examining the mirrors.

Javert turned to look at him over his shoulder. "How did you touch this?" he asked. "It's only gotten more scalding."

"Has it?" Valjean asked self-consciously. "I hadn't noticed." He did not add that he had some amount of experience enduring burns and brands, though under his clothes, a number of their effects were still visible years after the fact.

Javert only hummed in response, and took to a visual, rather than a tactile, investigation.

Valjean, meanwhile, was feeling steadily more ill. He was sweating profusely from his earlier exertions, and there was a pounding in his forehead he could not seem to shake. The mirrors were disorienting, pulling their reflections in and out of focus, distorting their appearances, and leaving him with a headache. Moreover, his hands, which genuinely had bothered him little before, were beginning to sting.

The heat itself was similarly insidious, like a tiger stalking its prey. He had noticed it less when he was preoccupied with finding a way out, but as he sat, a miasma of tiredness overcame him, and he felt his eyelids droop heavily.

Javert paused, looking at him in the mirror. "You see? That is why I told you to sit."

"Hmm?" Valjean mumbled.

Javert turned to face him, crossing his arms in consideration.

"Take my coat," he said.

Valjean raised his head wearily. "What? Why?"

"It is still wet, is it not?"

The older man picked himself up and padded over to where he had earlier discarded the garment. As Javert had suggested, the crimped wool fibers clung to the water, and so it remained largely saturated. Valjean sat back down with it, draping the damp article around his shoulders.

The Inspector arched his eyebrows.

"My frame is too wide to wear it," Valjean explained.

The wool was pleasantly cool against his neck, and he felt a fraction of his tension dissipate. How long had it been since he had slept? He was not sure that his spell of unconsciousness counted. Too tired to keep his eyes open, Jean Valjean let his chin slump against his chest, and he felt himself begin to doze.

* * *

Wiping the sweat from his hairline, Javert fought to ward off distraction, heedless of his injuries. The heat, now stifling in its intensity, made it harder to breathe, and his clothes itched as they dried. Staring at the flat surface of the reflective glass was not improving his mood, as he sought any divergence in contour and found none.

He was not even entirely sure why he persisted in looking. It was something to do, he decided, rather than sit and wait for the end. Still, he tried not to cling to hope. Valjean was already looking unwell, and there was no guarantee that the man could break down a door even under the best of circumstances.

Truth be told, the Inspector was worried. Valjean, no matter how he disguised himself, was always a pillar of strength - an infuriating one, granted, but one whom Javert had come to respect entirely in spite of himself. To see him looking so out of sorts, then, was disquieting.

There was also guilt in him, a piece of shrapnel embedded deep in his internal dialogue, which would not allow him to forget that Valjean had carried both of their weights in the flooded room; it was almost certain that the effort, coupled with stress and fear, had drained the man of his usual resilience. Javert glanced in the mirror at his companion. If there was one thing which he would not tolerate of himself, it was to be guilty.

He wondered also where their tormentor had gotten off to. Javert could not believe that he had simply gone on to other things, leaving them there. No, had he been the gambling type, the Inspector would have placed his money on one of two things: either that the Phantom was hiding in the darkness, silently relishing their struggle, or that he was even then preparing some other horror for them. For this reason, too, Javert would not cease searching for the door - if they were in fact being watched, he was not about to concede defeat.

He had made it nearly to the halfway point, still without discovering anything besides a headache, when behind him, Valjean gave a soft whimper. Javert paused, the back of his neck tingling with a premonition.

Valjean, who had slumped forward, shifted in his sleep. Mentally marking his place, the Inspector crossed over to him, kneeling on the wooden floorboards. Valjean's face wrinkled in a vague expression of displeasure, before his breath hitched. Under his eyelids, his eyes moved rapidly.

Javert inhaled, wondering at the best course of action. Usually, he supposed, it was better to wake one having a nightmare. In this instance, however, he had to wonder if perhaps the other man might need the sleep more than he did peace of mind. At this close distance, he could see Valjean was shivering, but whether that was from fright or dehydration, he could not say. Then the man jerked, breath catching on another quiet exclamation, and that settled it.

"Valjean?"

Javert shook him by the shoulder, perhaps somewhat more roughly than was required, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Valjean's eyes fluttered open and his brow creased in confusion.

"You were dreaming," the Inspector explained. "Unpleasantly, it looked like."

"Ah." Valjean pushed himself up slowly, rubbing his temples. "Yes, you could say that."

Javert got to his feet and awkwardly offered a hand. With an expression of gratitude, Valjean took it and stood, leaning a little more heavily on the Inspector than the younger man knew entirely what to do with.

"Forgive me," Valjean said quietly, collecting himself. "I had not intended to fall quite so completely asleep."

Javert shrugged this off with all the good grace he could manage.

"Think nothing of it," he said. "How are you feeling?"

Valjean raised his eyebrows slightly, apparently surprised that the Inspector had asked, but he replied, "I've felt better."

"Mmmm."

"Did you want to rest any?" Valjean asked cautiously. "We could take it in shifts."

Javert shook his head curtly. "It would be pointless." He neglected to mention that he could not stand the vulnerability of it, or that he, too, might just as easily be beset by night terrors. Even there, in that sweltering, bone-dry room, he could feel the lingering trace of water closing over him, and he suppressed a shudder.

Valjean gazed at him, and Javert was struck by the idea that the other man knew what he was thinking. To his chagrin, he was the first to look away, irritated and unsettled by the scrutiny. Valjean glanced down at the ground, beset by something like propriety.

"As you say, then," he replied. "Would you mind terribly if I sat back down?"

Javert inclined his head toward the negative, and so Valjean dropped where he stood, leaning his head in his hands. He chuckled faintly.

"I haven't felt so nauseous since Cosette was just a little thing. The whole week after I found her, we both came down with an awful fever, no doubt from that cesspit of an inn. She never cried once."

Javert listened to this effusive monologue, nonplussed. He himself was not what one would consider easy to talk to, a fact which he worked to cultivate, and he had had little occasion to casually speak with Valjean in the past. Even in Montreuil-sur-Mer, when he was effectively the Inspector's superior, they had chatted little, not the least in part because Valjean feared recognition. This tiny revelation, then, brought on by heat and quiet hysteria, was tenderness unlooked-for, and Javert felt himself shrink from it.

"You care immensely for her, don't you?" Javert was uncertain what prompted him to voice this understanding, but Valjean nodded.

"I do," he said heavily. "She is a microcosm of all that is good in the world."

"Can't imagine who she gets that from," Javert muttered under his breath.

Valjean coughed and clutched an arm closer to his side.

"What -?"

"Cramp," Valjean interjected. "I need water."

Javert chewed on the inside of his lip. "Thinking about it helps nothing," he provided.

The look Valjean gave him was withering. "_That_ is your advice?"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Javert said in exasperation. "I haven't exactly got a pitcher shoved up my sleeve."

Valjean gave a long exhalation. "I know that, of course. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

With a huff, Javert gave up on standing and sat down next to his companion. "You're dehydrated," he said. "I've seen it a hundred times."

Valjean turned his head. "Oh?"

Javert nodded. "In Toulon," he explained. "There was always someone who didn't get enough to drink; officers, prisoners, it didn't matter. They'd get dizzy, argumentative... Sometimes they would keel over."

The Inspector looked up to find Valjean staring at him with the most curious expression.

"I never thought I'd live to see a day when we could talk about that place."

Something like a flush crawled up Javert's neck, though he almost managed to convince himself it was just the heat starting to affect him. He pursed his lips.

"Why shouldn't we talk about it?"

Valjean gave half a shrug. "Well, just that you've always been too busy trying to arrest me for us to exactly reminisce on old times."

"I suppose that's fair."

Silence set in around them, and the longer it went on, the harder it was to break. Not only that, but the temperature had risen higher still; Javert's tongue sat like sandpaper in his mouth, and while it felt somewhat of an improvement to have stopped sweating, he knew all too well that it was a bad omen.

His pulse hammered out a tattoo in his neck, and his eyes were just beginning to glaze over when beside him, Valjean started to hallucinate.

* * *

The trouble began as he slipped into a state of hypnogogia, hovering on the event horizon of sleep. He was so tired; Valjean could not remember being that exhausted in years. And for all that Javert criticized him for futile actions, the Inspector's recommendation to not think of water was utterly without point, for the entirety of Valjean's being cried out for a drink.

He could disregard the way his stomach cramped, the ache in his muscles, even the way the heat was baking his flesh, but he could not, no matter what he tried, drown out the voice in his head which screamed it would do anything for a mouthful of ice-cold water.

It was in the midst of all this that he began to notice a darkness at the edges of his vision. At first, it was formless, sort of a fuzziness which faded in and out as he blinked his eyes open, but then it started to solidify into shapes, figures which rose and fell like ghosts. He rubbed his eyes, dislodging a crust of grit, and the apparitions faded for a moment. Before long, however, they were back, shimmering mirages that distended and shrank in turn.

"Er, Javert..." he heard himself say.

The Inspector turned to look at him

"Do you see that?" Valjean continued, squinting.

"See what?"

"The... whatever those are," he replied, gesticulating. "The bits of black."

Javert was now furrowing his brow, and Valjean, muddled as he was, still received the distinct impression that the other man had not the faintest idea what he was talking about.

"I see nothing but the room we've been trapped in," the Inspector said flatly.

"I -" Valjean stopped as he swayed forward. "I don't -"

"Jean?"

The room seemed to spin, though he was reasonably sure it was only in his head this time, and Valjean struggled to hold onto consciousness. The mirages expanded as if to mock him, ringing the pair of them in like wolves. As he watched, their forms metamorphosed, some gaining familiar faces, others becoming ships and prison bars.

The heat beat on his face like the relentless sun of Toulon, and in that moment, he could not have said where or when he was.

"Cannot -" he whispered, through rapid, shallow breaths. With that, he tipped over in a dead faint.

* * *

The Inspector was stricken, at a loss for what to do. Logic told him there was nothing to be done; all that would save either of them was water and a cool place to rest, neither of which were to be found there. Still, he could not shake the notion that he was not trying hard enough, that there might yet be a way to repay the debt which burdened his soul.

Valjean interrupted Javert's thoughts as he shifted where he lay on the floor, head lolling to the side. In the light, it was plain how pale he had become, his cheeks ashen, hair flaccid where it fell over his face.

Javert reached out a hand, forcing clinical disaffection over his hesitancy, and brushed his fingers against Valjean's forehead. The skin there burned, and not just with the heat of the room; his companion was running a fever. Javert lingered on this a moment longer than he necessarily approved of, and he was overcome suddenly by the recollection of Valjean pressing their mouths together, so gently, shyly even -

Javert clamped down on that train of thought, deliberately burying it in his subconscious. The kiss had been a response to stress, nothing more. It was better for everyone to ensure it stayed that way in his memory. Snatching his hand back before his hyperthermic thoughts dredged up anything else he would prefer to forget, he got up and stood, paying no mind to the wooziness of his head.

He paced a few, desperate rounds about Valjean's prone form, thoughts flying apart as he sought a way, any way, to get them out, but the effort became too much, and his muscles, dehydrated and strained, gave out. He sank to his knees instead.

In his state of unawareness, Valjean murmured in his sleep, and the Inspector wondered if he was having nightmares again. The matter seemed to be made plain a moment later when he cried out, flinching back from some remembered blow, and Javert found himself wondering if he featured at all in the visions which haunted his unlikely friend. He had a sinking suspicion that he probably did. There were too many years of cat and mouse between them, too many fights and chases and arrests. Only Valjean's superior strength, he imagined, kept the man from being utterly terrified of him. Javert was startled to find that this morose thought actually caused him to feel ashamed; when had he started to care what the old convict thought of him?

But he did care - the Inspector was too honest with himself to deny that. Valjean offered him redemption and friendship like it was wine, asking him nothing in return, and Javert was drunk on it.

Just then, the other man arched his back, fingernails digging into his palms, and in his mind's eye, Javert could paint in the rest of what he guessed the man remembered: a whipping post, the salty air, seagulls crying, and a sandy floor stained with blood. The crack of leather echoed down the length of the years which separated him from that place, and the Inspector found he could still taste the metallic tang which permanently flavored the air.

He had thought nothing of it before when he spoke of Toulon, but Valjean's reaction was an unsubtle reminder that their respective experiences there had been very different, a fact which was only reiterated as he watched Valjean succumb further and further to fever dreams. He could not turn back the clock, could not erase what he was coming to understand were his sins, but he swore he would hold vigil, would bear witness to Valjean's suffering, because it was all he could think to do.

Gradually, Valjean's spasms lessened until he lay still, utterly spent, down to the last vestiges of the great strength he usually possessed. Javert looked on in silence, and wondered if it were his place to offer a prayer to God.

He did not know how long he had sat there when he got the distinct impression someone was watching him. He looked up to see a familiar figure silhouetted on top of the wall.

"You," Javert spat, rising shakily to his feet. "What else could you possibly want?"

The Phantom laughed, and the sound of it hung in the air like death. "Come now, Monsieur, surely it is only polite to check in on one's prisoners?"

"Valjean is dying," Javert said baldly. "And I am not far behind. If you have a scrap of human decency in you, would you not give him a glass of water?"

Atop his perch, the Phantom appeared to consider this. "You would only slow the inevitable," he pointed out. "It really would be kinder just to let him die."

"Please." The petition rose unbidden to his lips, and he fought the self-loathing which came with it.

The Phantom cocked his head to the side. "I suppose it depends," he said meditatively. "What are you willing to do for a glass of water?"

Javert paused, recognizing the danger inherent to his position.

"That is a rather pointed question."

"And you're evading it. Think, Monsieur, what would you do to extend his life?"

Javert took a deep breath. The situation was precarious, for he knew that no matter what he said, their captor was just as liable to settle on a demand even more demented than his own suggestion. He gave up.

"Name your price."

The Phantom paced along the edge of the wall as he deliberated.

"How do you feel about fire?" he asked slyly.

Javert blanched. "You cannot be serious."

"Au contraire," pronounced the masked man. "I am deadly serious. I asked you what you would do; you refused to respond. You asked me what my price was; I have given my answer. If it is not to your liking, then you should have made your own suggestion."

"I think", Javert said coldly, "that you are deliberately being a sadist."

"Fire for water," the Phantom murmured thoughtfully. "It does have a certain symmetry, doesn't it? Let us say this: set yourself alight, and I will provide you with a pitcher to use as you wish, or you can watch him surrender to the heat. What will it be?"

"Is that your final offer?"

"It is."

Javert licked his lips. Then he said, "I will do it."

There was a ringing in his ears, and a deep-seated horror in his gut, but he felt remarkably detached as he agreed.

The Phantom grinned, skull-like, as he asked, "Why?"

There had been no thought in his decision, but just like that, Javert knew the answer. It glittered clear as crystal in his head.

"Because he would do the same for me."

The masked man nodded, his approval evident. "Very well."

The Phantom disappeared over the side of the wall, and Javert glanced back at Valjean, silently begging him to keep holding on. But a moment later, the masked man reappeared, holding a pitcher in one hand and a small box in the other. He tossed Javert a match out of the box.

"Have at it," he said, setting the vessel on the wall next to him with a thump.

"How do I know you won't break your word again?" Javert asked, narrowing his eyes.

The Phantom spread his arms. "You don't," he replied, sounding far too cheered about it. "You'll just have to decide how badly you want this." With that last, he nudged the pitcher with his boot.

Javert knelt, picking up the matchstick. His fingers defied his will and trembled. He struck the head against the floor, watching it ignite, and he stood. Now that he held the match in his hand, Javert did not know if he could do it.

_He would do the same for me._ The words revolved in his head, and he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were true. Valjean, he guessed, would endure anything for someone he professed to care about. Looking up at the Phantom, defiance flooding through his veins, Javert touched the flame to his shirtsleeve.

The cotton fabric caught like tinder, the char length expanding by the second. Javert watched in mounting terror as his brain belatedly caught up with what he had done. The flames licked up his arm faster than he would have believed possible. The first second, he felt only warmth, and then he seized up as pain clenched his whole side at once.

Tattered scraps of fabric floated to the floor around him as he sank to the ground, tongues of fire crawling down his shoulders. He fought to keep his eyes open - blacking out could prove fatal - but he could not even scream, could only pour his concentration into remaining upright, and even in this he failed and he collapsed, shaking, on the floor. The fire, starved of oxygen, extinguished itself.

Though scarcely forty seconds had passed, the flames had chewed through much of the left side of his button-down, leaving the skin beneath red and shiny. Already, the burns began to bruise at their edges.

Javert raised his head a fraction of an inch to look up at the Phantom.

"Give me the damn water," he said hoarsely.

The Phantom gazed down at him in shock. "You actually did it. I don't believe my eyes."

"That makes two of us," the Inspector said, attempting to push himself back up with his right arm and failing. He landed heavily back on his left side and stifled an exclamation.

"For your sake, I hope it was worth it," the Phantom told him, lowering the pitcher on a rope.

"For your sake, you'd best hope so as well," Javert swore under his breath. He crawled forward unsteadily and snatched the jug before the Phantom could change his mind.

* * *

Sitting in the dark, Erik stared not at his arena but at the wall, seeing none of it. Next to him sat the matchbox, and in him sat a quandary.

Clearly, whatever past Valjean and the Inspector shared, the details of which the Phantom could only begin to guess at, it was a contentious one, for it took scarcely no manipulation whatsoever to make them believe the worst of each other, and yet - and here it was that he got stuck - they appeared to reconcile almost as quickly. It was a curious change, and he wondered at it.

Not only that, but Inspector Javert took ameliorating a debt to a new height of particularity, discontent to step to the side and allow nature to take its course. If indeed he was spurred only by his sense of obligation, then Erik had never met anyone quite so obsessed with evening the score. He had not counted on the Inspector fulfilling his demand. He had not believed the man capable of it.

If, on the other hand, Javert were driven by some other motivator, then perhaps the matter became clearer. _He would do the same for me_, the man had said. It was this enigmatic phrase which the Phantom turned over in his head, pondering and cross-examining. Javert had said it with such certainty that it became irrefutable, and Erik was left to question what made him so sure. Valjean, of course, had spared him from drowning, but that could not be the only reason.

With a turn of his head, Erik stared out across the platform and down into the mirror room. There was a sallow pallor about the both of his prisoners which suggested they were nearing the end of their rope. The small amount of drinking water he had provided would not be enough to restore their health.

The smallest fragment of doubt seated itself in his thoughts, and he glanced down at the matchbox. It was one thing, he thought to himself, to destroy something as cold and unfeeling as duty, but there was a beauty in love that he did not have the strength to touch.

* * *

Javert allowed himself a single drink of the icy water, though no sooner had a drop passed his lips than he craved all of it, craved oceans of it, but his self-control was absolute, and he set it down. The Inspector also took a moment to survey the extent of his injuries, and decided he was likely to be dead soon enough that attempting to bandage them would be a waste of effort. He dragged the water vessel back to where Valjean lay still, and it took most of what energy he had left to accomplish even this most simple of tasks. The hot air was like acid where it brushed against his burns.

The faint rise and fall of Valjean's chest reassured him that the man still lived, and so he carefully tipped his head back. With a gentleness he never suspected himself of possessing, he poured a small morsel of water in his mouth.

Though he slept, Valjean's body responded, swallowing. Again, Javert gave him a drink, and then again, until with a cough that shook his frame, Valjean opened his eyes. His expression bordered on confusion, but Javert silently offered him another drink, and slowly his eyes unclouded, lucidity returning.

"Javert..." he breathed softly. "I thought - I dreamed -"

The Inspector shook his head and pressed him to take more water. Valjean's hands trembled, but they closed around Javert's own, guiding the pitcher to his lips.

"Your arm..." he murmured when he finished. "Javert, what happened?"

"Please," Javert said tightly, "ask me anything but that."

Valjean sat up slowly; Javert leaned over to brace his shoulder, and the older man murmured his thanks. He took the Inspector's far hand, delicately examining the burned tissue. Javert tolerated the attention, as he could think of no appropriate way to refuse. Valjean gazed at him, forehead wrinkling in his worry.

"Won't you say how you were hurt?"

Javert turned away, unable to meet the concern in his eyes.

"The Phantom made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"For?"

Wordlessly, the Inspector hefted the water pitcher, setting it back down with a thud. Valjean's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to speak, but Javert held up his hand.

"Don't," he said. "You would have behaved exactly the same way in my position, I can see that now. And I wasn't about to sit here and do nothing."

Valjean gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. "You shouldn't have," he insisted. "You should never even have entertained the thought. But... I am glad I can speak to you one more time."

Javert laughed once under his breath. "Could you possibly be any more sentimental?"

"Probably," came the lighthearted reply. Then, "We're going to die soon, aren't we?"

"Yes," Javert said simply, "I'm afraid we are."

Valjean smiled slightly. "It is nothing to be afraid of."

Javert's quiet laugh was not quite despairing, but it was close. "Isn't it?"

"No," Valjean whispered.

"How can you be sure?"

"Faith," he replied. "Faith that we go to a better place."

"I wish I had your conviction."

Valjean said nothing for a moment. "Javert..." he began nervously. "Could I ask you a question?"

"I believe you just did," the Inspector replied with an arch of eyebrows.

"When we were in the flooded room," Valjean said slowly, taking another drink of water, "I would have sworn, right as we went under, that you kissed me."

Javert froze, and then grimaced. "Well, I hadn't expected to live long enough to have a conversation about it."

"I'm sorry," Valjean said, and he truly did sound apologetic, a fact which left the Inspector marginally less perplexed than it would once have done. "I suppose I was only wondering..."

"Wondering?"

"What you meant by it," Valjean finished heavily, looking away.

Javert stared at him for a moment, struggling to compose his thoughts. What he finally said was, "I thought I was dying - it was an involuntary reaction, I'm sure."

"Ah. Of course," Valjean responded, still carefully looking at the ground. "And do you think... Do you think that if I made the same gesture now that you could as easily dismiss it?" Javert gaped at him, and Valjean hurriedly added, "I shan't do a thing if you are bothered by it."

"Perhaps..." Javert's lips quivered as he sought an appropriate response. "Perhaps... imagine I am not bothered by it."

Valjean looked at him then, searchingly, and Javert permitted the faintest trace of a smile to curve his lips. The older man rolled onto his knees and placed a hand on Javert's good shoulder. He looked up, apparently waiting to see if the Inspector would change his mind, but Javert sat still as a statue, until Valjean leaned in and brushed their mouths together. Javert's eyes closed slowly, and his thoughts went quiet. He could have died in that moment, and would have accepted it peacefully.

They were interrupted by the creak of hinges from behind them, and the two men looked up in alarm.

* * *

From his vantage point on top of the wall, Erik held a panoramic view of his entire mirror room, which he commanded like Charon captained his ferry. He breathed the scorching air rising up from below, feeling not unlike a spirit faithfully presiding over the fifth circle of hell. With a toss of his head, he looked down at his captives.

The Phantom hemmed and hawed, swearing from one moment to the next that he would not be swayed. It was unsafe to allow anyone to leave his lair alive, should they happen upon it, and he could not risk their vengeance. The Inspector, he was certain, would be especially ruthless. They had done nothing to deserve reprieve, and it went against his principles to so much as think of granting any.

And yet... Valjean put his hand on the Inspector's shoulder, and the Phantom felt something within him shift, like the falling of pebbles which begins an avalanche. There was such warmth there, the likes of which he had never known. It wounded him, but filled him with a strange, sweet sorrow like a siren's syrupy song.

Without hardly thinking about what he was doing, the Phantom slid off the wall, landing lightly on the stone floor outside the mirrored room. He found the door in the wall, hesitating even as he opened it. The door swung inward with a creak, and he stood under the frame as Valjean and Javert turned around in unison.

"Monsieurs," he said only, as the imprisoned pair staggered to their feet.

"Please," Valjean begged immediately. "Will you not show us mercy?"

"Mercy?" Erik exhaled. "I know little enough of that."

"Then why -"

Erik held up his hand, and Valjean stilled. "Your thoughts on compassion are perhaps even more foreign to me than they are to your friend the Inspector. However... I do confess myself moved."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Javert asked sharply.

Erik paused, conscience striving against an implacable sort of self-preservation.

"Meaning," he replied, "that if you wish to live, you would do well to go now and leave, before I change my mind."

Valjean and Javert glanced at one another before tripping over their feet in their haste to make for the exit. Javert waited for Valjean to go first before brushing past the Phantom, at which Erik again held up a hand.

"Ah, Monsieur l'Inspector," he said, and Javert stopped, turning to him guardedly.

"What is it?"

Erik pulled a thin sword from where it rested on his hip, holding it out, handle-first.

"I believe this is yours."

The Inspector snatched the weapon from him, looking it over closely. Apparently satisfied that it was not a trick, he raised the blade in the Phantom's direction. Unsurprised, Erik did not move.

"Javert." Valjean had turned around in exasperation. "Please, let's just leave."

"Jean," the Inspector growled, "this man has tortured us within an inch of our lives, was going to kill us without a second thought, and you expect me to let him go?"

"Yes, I do," came the soft reply.

Erik turned to him in astonishment, even as Javert said, "Then come and stop me."

Valjean shook his head. "Stop yourself."

Javert ground his teeth in frustration, and privately, Erik only encouraged him to get on with it. Finally, the Inspector flicked the blade, and Erik waited to taste blood, but rather than strike him as he had expected, the rapier merely caught the edge of his mask, knocking it askew. Javert stepped back in shock, and Erik knew that the lamplight had caught his face.

He smiled thinly and pried the article the rest of the way off, hefting it lightly in one hand.

"Satisfied, Monsieur?" he asked, acutely aware of how his erstwhile prisoners were staring at the mess of scarred tissue. "I told you, did I not, that I was unaccustomed to mercy. Can you now see why?"

"That is no excuse," the Inspector said coldly.

"No, it is not," Erik agreed.

"Javert..." There was a warning now in Valjean's voice, and the Inspector nodded.

"Let's go," he agreed, and the two men turned and left.

Erik stared after them as they climbed the stairs, knowing they would find the door unlocked. His fingers traced the embossing of his false face, which in due order he replaced and straightened. Then he shut the door, sliding down the wall next to it, and it was some time before he moved at all.

Had anyone else still remained in that lonely place, they might have heard the sound of weeping.

* * *

In the relative safety of the hallway, Valjean slowed, taking a deep breath. Javert, registering the break in stride, also paused, turning over his shoulder.

"We're alive," Valjean said in apparent awe and disbelief. "We're alive."

"Against all odds," Javert agreed, "so we are."

They looked up to the sound of footsteps; an older woman dressed all in black was brought up short by the sight of the both of them standing there. She stared at them in evident shock, and Javert wondered how they were possibly going to explain their condition to her, when the lady shook her head.

"Come with me, you two, and say nothing of this to anyone."

Valjean took off after her without stalling, and so Javert followed suit. They carried after her through a twisting series of back hallways, until a tight turn around a corner brought them into a dim dressing room.

"Sit," the lady pressed them, indicating a chaise in the corner. "Drink," she added, setting a pitcher down on the sideboard. "I'll be back with bandages."

She left as imperiously as she had arrived, and the two men glanced at one another before Valjean sat down on the chaise.

"There's no use arguing with her," he advised the Inspector. "She's a tyrant when she's in her element."

Javert sat stiffly next to him on the small couch, the second wind brought on by their release fading.

"You know her, then?"

Valjean nodded. "Madame Giry, the ballet mistress. As well as, I think, an acquaintance of the Phantom's."

Javert's eyes narrowed. "And you trust her?"

Valjean nodded. "She is a good woman. Her heart is in the right place."

Javert rolled his eyes. "Your faith in humanity is disturbing, but I am also in little condition to argue."

Valjean chuckled weakly. "Yes, well." He took a drink of water and handed the jug to Javert. "Neither of us are."

They sat in silence for a time, until at last Javert asked, "What are you going to do now?"

"Now?"

The Inspector nodded.

Valjean seemed to mull this over. "I suppose," he said, "that that depends on you."

"Does it?"

"Well, you could always arrest me." Valjean said this lightly, but his expression suggested he was only half-joking. "Or, if not that, then I suppose I shall continue to manage the Opéra House, at least for a while."

Javert held up his scorched left arm.

"You must have taken leave of your senses if you think me likely to arrest you after this."

Valjean inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"So," Javert considered aloud, idly examining where crisped flesh was beginning to peel. "You run the theatre, I return to the police force, and we never speak to one another again."

Valjean looked sidelong at him. "I do not believe I ever specified that."

"Well, you wouldn't want _my_ company, that only stands to reason, so why -?"

He startled somewhat as Valjean reached out and lightly ran his thumb along the Inspector's jaw.

"Will you permit me?" the man asked quietly.

Javert took a deep breath, feeling not unlike he stood at the edge of a precipice.

"Only if you say this time that you mean it."

Valjean smiled, and it was the most wonderful thing in the world.

"I mean it."

The Inspector surprised the both of them, slipping his fingers into Valjean's hair and kissing him intently. He did not, in that instant, care that he was in pain, that the ballet mistress could return at any moment, or that he was making a complete fool of himself. What mattered was the feeling of wanting and being wanted, and the inner warmth which blossomed like desert flowers after a rain.

He broke the embrace with a slight gasp, sitting back on the lounge. Valjean's face was positively radiant, and Javert wrestled with the instinct just to bask in the glow of his happiness. It was too sudden, and yet he did not know that he could envision another outcome.

A thought seemed to strike Valjean, and he let out a soft breath of laughter. In reply to the Inspector's querying look, he said, "You'll not be able to call me saintly now - probably just as well, really, as I must imagine that's sacrilege."

The Inspector rolled his eyes. "Jean, if you are not a saint, then there has never been one on this earth. Accept it."

Valjean sighed. "If you insist, my dear Javert."

* * *

It was quite some time before either gentleman had recovered enough from their ordeal to leave a temporary infirmary, but under Madame Giry's watchful eye, Valjean was ultimately able to don his cravat and speak to his company, apologizing for his absence and describing his vision for their next production. After the fact, he gave the ballet mistress an envelope containing a check for twenty-thousand francs, reminding her to deliver it. She studied him for a moment, but then agreed without another word about it.

Javert, for his part, returned to the police station amid a flurry of rumors, all of which died on gossips' lips as he stormed through the door, his presence commanding as much respect as ever. No one but the Commissaire heard his report, and no one dared ask him about it, either. Still, it was from then on sometimes remarked that the old Inspector was no longer quite the terror he had once been, that he was more fair, and even willing to listen if one caught him in the right mood. And if Javert heard these things, then he never commented on them. He simply went about his duty, and took one leave of absence a month to attend the theater.

The first of these took place five weeks after Valjean went back to his managerial responsibilities; that evening, he met the Inspector outside of box six, holding a pair of programs and a glass of champagne. Javert stood by in his coat and top hat, watching with resignation as Valjean entrusted Madame Giry with delivering another check; slipped also into the envelope with it was a small, handwritten note. On it was written a simple invitation to tea. The hand of writ was Valjean's.

The addressee was a man in a mask.


End file.
